IRIS International, Inc. (IRIS International) announced that its independent lead director, Richard H. Williams, has elected to retire from the company's board of directors, effective as of the company's next annual shareholders meeting. Williams, who joined the IRIS International board in June 2003, elected chairman in March 2004, and independent lead director in November 2007, will serve out the remainder of his director term until the company's next annual shareholders meeting.
“The Board of Directors and management team of IRIS International are grateful to Dick Williams for his valuable contributions during a period in which we have experienced very high growth and a broadening of our core urinalysis instrument and consumables product lines. His contributions were also important in the planning and implementation of our second five year plan now underway, which extends our technology platform into expected high growth, high margin areas of hematology and molecular diagnostics, including high value, high reimbursement blood-based tests for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases,” stated Cesar García, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IRIS International.
Said Williams, “It has been a great privilege to have participated, along with Cesar Garcia and the other IRIS board members and management, in the successful transformation of IRIS over the last five and a half years. I am very confident that IRIS’s strategy combined with the successful execution by its management team will continue to create significant shareholder value by creating ‘disruptive’ product opportunities with a combined addressable market opportunity approaching $4.0 billion annually worldwide.”