Mar 16 2009
James M. Phillips has been elected chairman of the board of directors of NanoMech, a Fayetteville-based designer and manufacturer of application-specific nanoparticle additives, coatings and coating deposition systems.
James M. Phillips, Chairman, NanoMech (Photo: Business Wire)
Phillips’ experience with technology companies is vast and well chronicled in U.S. media. He has held executive and/or ownership positions with Motorola, SkyTel, Mobilecomm, Luminetx, FedEx Institute of Technology, iPIX, Telular and Morgan Keegan. He holds patents in cell phone, PDA and data modem design, and has brought many new technologies to market.
Phillips served as president of SkyTel, a company that became the largest messaging provider in the U.S. In 2004, he served as founding chairman and executive director of the FedEx Institute of Technology, establishing this leading research park on the campus of the University of Memphis.
Phillips has been named one of the “Innovators of the Year” by Information Week magazine. As an executive officer with Motorola, he led the company’s successful development and launch into broadband with his team’s invention of the cable modem. While Phillips was CEO of iPIX, he led the company to a $3 billion valuation on NASDAQ with the development of the largest internet imaging platform and technology to power virtual tours – a staple on real estate, hotel, security, and entertainment web sites – and oversaw the creation of the popular image submission process used by millions of eBay users every day. As chairman and CEO of Luminetx, he led the development and commercialization of the VeinViewer, named by Time Magazine the “coolest medical device of the year.”
Recently, Phillips was appointed to the executive committee of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness (www.compete.org), a group of corporate, university and labor leaders committed to the future prosperity of America and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy through the creation of high-value economic activity. According to Deborah Wince Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness, "Jim is a results oriented entrepreneur who catalyzes dreams into reality, plans into action, and the future into the present."
“NanoMech is an innovative company with breakthrough technology pioneered at the University of Arkansas, one of America’s great research universities. It has the potential to dramatically increase U.S. manufacturing leadership through amazing and very profitable new solutions,” said Phillips.
“We are extremely pleased to have Mr. Phillips as our chairman of the board,” said Dr. Ajay P. Malshe, NanoMech’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “His ability to lead a technology to market brings great promise to NanoMech. Since 2002, NanoMech has been a source of award winning innovations in multiple business sectors. After incubation and sustained growth, NanoMech is now poised to take another stride toward becoming a leading U.S. nano manufacturer. Mr. Phillips’ experience in high-tech sectors and his national leadership at the U.S. Council on Competitiveness blend well with NanoMech’s young and growing portfolio of ‘nanovations.’ With him at the helm, we have created a unique chemistry that should lead to an array of advanced products providing greater competitiveness to U.S. industries as well as economic growth for our state, region and country. This is particularly vital during the current economic climate.”
NanoMech’s scientists and engineers design a wide variety of nanocomposite materials and coatings that have properties such as extreme wear resistance, self-lubrication, antimicrobial, biocompatibility and other attributes that benefit multiple industries. NanoMech’s suite of nano materials and manufacturing technologies holds numerous patents and patents pending.
Last month, NanoMech subsidiary Duralor took to market cubic boron nitride (cBN) composite coatings for metal cutting tools and announced its first sale of that product to a global automobile manufacturer. This technology can significantly help the global effort to increase manufacturing efficiency while reducing costs, increasing output and saving energy. The Duralor product, called TuffTek™, outperforms traditional coatings by 300 percent or more and provides a 50 percent reduction in labor requirements.
NanoMech was recently recognized for “Excellence in Innovation” by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Further, application of cBN nanoparticles by NanoMech and Duralor was chosen by the editors of R&D Magazine as representative of the best 25 micro- and nanotechnologies of 2006, and NanoMech was the 2005 recipient of the Frost & Sullivan award for excellence in technology in the field of advanced coatings and surface technologies.