Founder and COB of Intevac, Norm Pond Retired

Intevac, Inc., supplier of thin-film processing systems and digital night-vision technologies, announced that Norman H. Pond, founder and COB, has informed the company that he is retiring as chairman and as a member of the board of directors, effective August 16, 2017.

Pond, 78, has served as COB since Intevac’s founding in 1991, and as CEO from 1991 until 2000, September 2001 until January 2002, and November 2012 until July 2013.

He founded Intevac in 1991 as a spin-out from Varian Associates. Prior to founding Intevac, he served as the president of Varian Associates and previously was a group executive at Teledyne. He previously served on the boards of Varian Associates and Ebara Technology.

He holds a BS in physics from the Missouri Institute of Science and Technology and an MS in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles.

He is the author of The Tube Guys (2008), the first book on the history of microwave tubes and how their impact has been essential to our nation’s defense.

David S. Dury will succeed Pond as COB of directors. He is the former CFO of Aspect Development and co-founder of Mentor Capital Group, and joined the company’s board of directors in 2002.

He stated: “Norm Pond is a visionary technologist, a pioneer of magnetic media sputtering systems that produce the majority of HDD disks sold today, as well as digital night-vision technologies that have become the de facto standard for digital night vision for the U.S. military and foreign nations. His experience and wisdom have been tremendous assets to the company. While his contributions will be missed on our Board, we all wish him the very best in his much-deserved retirement.“

Pond stated: “I want Wendell and all of the employees of Intevac to know that I am extremely proud of what they have accomplished in building two world-class, market-leading businesses, and I know the company has a very bright future ahead.”