FARO Names John E. Townsley as SVP of HR

LAKE MARY, Fla., May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FARO Technologies, Inc., the world market leader in portable computer-aided measurement arms and laser tracker sales, announced that it has appointed John E. Townsley as its Senior Vice President of Human Resources.

Most recently, John served as the VP of Human Resources and Administration of Balfour Beatty, Inc. -- the U.S. entity of London based Balfour Beatty plc. He was recruited to establish and develop the HR function for the U.S. operating companies and strategically link them with the overall business plan.

John graduated from Murray State University in 1986 with a Bachelor's degree in Management, then began his career as the Assistant Human Resources Manager at Emerson Electric's Hermetic Motor Co. -- a $350 million manufacturing entity with 2,900 employees -- and was named HR Director by 1993. In 1994, he joined Danaher Corporation as Director of HR in the Danaher Tool Group. He subsequently was appointed to the position of Worldwide Director of HR for Jacobs Chuck Manufacturing Co., another Danaher Corp. subsidiary. In addition, John served as Group Director of Human Resources, which gave him responsibility for nine companies with $1 billion in revenue with global operations in 22 locations and 5,800 employees.

In 1999, he became the VP of HR for Packaging Services, an operating subsidiary within Cardinal Health, a global health care company. During his tenure, John led due diligence and integration efforts for multiple international and domestic acquisitions, created an accountability-oriented management environment, including succession management and a culture of competency-based selection and performance measurements.

"John has a proven track record of success with global organizations," FARO President and CEO Jay Freeland said. "His expertise in strategic management and organizational development for multinational Fortune 500 corporations will be an invaluable asset, but ultimately it was his passion for FARO's mission that set him far above all other candidates."

About FARO

With more than 13,500 installations and 6,500 customers globally, FARO Technologies, Inc. designs, develops, and markets portable, computerized measurement devices and software used to create digital models -- or to perform evaluations against an existing model -- for anything requiring highly detailed 3-D measurements, including part and assembly inspection, factory planning and asset documentation, as well as specialized applications ranging from surveying, recreating accident sites and crime scenes to digitally preserving historical sites.

FARO's technology increases productivity by dramatically reducing the amount of on-site measuring time, and the various industry-specific software packages enable users to process and present their results quickly and more effectively.

Principal products include the world's best-selling portable measurement arm -- the FaroArm; the world's best-selling laser tracker -- the FARO Laser Tracker; the FARO Laser ScanArm; FARO Laser Scanner LS; the FARO Gage, Gage- PLUS and PowerGAGE; and the CAM2 family of advanced CAD-based measurement and reporting software. FARO Technologies is ISO-9001 certified and ISO-17025 laboratory registered.

Learn more at http://www.faro.com

SOURCE FARO Technologies, Inc.
CONTACT: Darin Sahler, Global PR Manager of FARO Technologies, Inc.,
+1-407-333-9911, Darin.Sahler@faro.com
Web site: http://www.faro.com
(FARO)

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding FARO Technologies Inc's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report or Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year.