Precision Optics’ Founder Resigns; Company Adds to Board

Founder Richard E. Forkey has resigned from Gardner, Mass.-based Precision Optics Corporation Inc.’s board of directors. Filling the gap are Kenneth S. Schwartz, M.D. and Peter H. Woodward, Woodward as the new board chairman.

Forkey founded Precision Optics Corporation in 1982 and dedicated the next thirty years to the company. During this time he served in many positions including clerk, treasurer, president, CEO, director, and chairman of the board. He was the visionary behind the company and has been instrumental in the development of the company’s proprietary technologies, having invented or co-invented the technology behind over fifty patents and patent applications assigned to Precision Optics. Forkey will continue to be involved with the company and will retain the title of founder and chairman emeritus.

Under Forkey’s leadership, Precision Optics developed optical systems that fueled advances in many different fields—from the world’s first sterilizable endocouplers developed in the early 1980s to the night vision optics used by the U.S. military in the early 1990s, to the world’s first 3-D endoscope used for robotic surgery in the late 1990s. More recently, Forkey’s vision for smaller, less intrusive optical devices for use in medical diagnostics and surgical procedures, has resulted in optical systems and endoscopes as small as a couple hundred microns.

Commenting on the recent changes, Woodward said, “I am pleased to join the board of Precision Optics and am honored to be named chairman. My interest in the company and in serving on the board is a direct result of the years of work, creativity, visionary development and leadership of Richard Forkey and I wish to take this opportunity, along with the rest of the board, to thank him for his service and contributions. Motivating many of the important decisions the company will encounter will be the desire to fulfill the potential that he has created.”

“I’m really glad that Ken and Peter have both agreed to join the board, and I look forward to working with them,” said Forkey. “With their extensive experience in the medical and financial industries, they bring to the board an expanded perspective which I believe will serve us well as we work together to take full advantage of the opportunities available to Precision Optics today and in the future.”

Schwartz is currently the medical director at New York Radiology Alliance, a position he has held since October 2010, and the director of the radiology residency program at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center. He was the founding and managing Partner of S and D Medical LLP, a 60-person radiology group providing radiology services to eleven hospitals and imaging centers in the New York metropolitan area, for over ten years until he sold the practice in 2010. He has served on the board of directors at ARKS Radiology Management Inc. since June 1999 and serves on the board of trustees at the Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center. Schwartz also served as the adjunct clinical associate professor in the department of medical imaging at the New York Institute of Technology in the College of Osteopathic Medicine from July 2007 to July 2012. Schwartz earned a B.S. from Brooklyn College and a medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He was a diagnostic radiology resident at North Shore University Hospital in the Memorial Hospital-Sloan Kettering Cornell Cooperating Program.

Woodward is the founder of MHW Capital Management, LLC (MHW), a position he has held since September 2005. MHW specializes in large equity investments in public companies implementing operating strategies to significantly improve their profitability. From 1996 to 2005, Woodward was the managing director for Regan Fund Management LLC. He currently serves as the chairman of the board and member of the audit committee for Cartesian Inc. and TSS Inc. Woodward holds a B.A. in economics from Colgate University and a Masters of International Affairs with a concentration in international economics and finance from Columbia University. He is also a chartered financial analyst.

Precision Optics makes optical medical instruments such as laparoscopes, arthroscopes, and sinuscopes, as well as endocouplers and a product line of 3-D endoscopes for use in minimally invasive surgical procedures.