VANCOUVER, Jan. 13, 2015 /CNW/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) ("UrtheCast" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the creation of an Advisory Board to advise the Company's senior management team on strategy, planning, performance, and stakeholder relations.
UrtheCast's newly-selected Advisors — Peter Marino, Michele Weslander Quaid, Jeffrey Manber, and Sunil Sharma — are leading executives currently with, or from organizations including Google Inc., NanoRacks LLC, Lockheed Electronics, and Extreme Venture Partners. This diverse group of senior executives will share their expertise with UrtheCast as the Company continues to democratize Earth Observation by revolutionizing geospatial 'big data' analytics, making access to both video imagery and data affordable for a wider array of users.
"We are extremely fortunate to have access to the experience of such well-respected business leaders on our Advisory Board. With excellent representation from venture capital, government, and industry, we are confident that our Advisors will be able to provide invaluable insight, supporting the Company's continued success," said UrtheCast Chief Executive Officer, Scott Larson.
UrtheCast's Advisory Board members are as follows:
Peter Marino, Retired | Senior Advisor to Defense and Intelligence Community
As the former President and COO of Lockheed Electronics Co. Inc. and as a leader in the intelligence sector, Mr. Marino brings with him extensive experience in both government and private industry. While in the government he held a number of senior positions including twenty years in various intelligence roles. Upon leaving the government he entered several leadership positions including Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley and later Fairchild Industries Inc. Peter currently serves on several corporate boards, three of which he chairs, including: Advisor to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, DHS, Department of Defense (DoD), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Peter also serves as a senior executive Fellow at Harvard University.
Michele Weslander Quaid | Chief Innovation Evangelist & CTO (Public Sector), Google
Ms. Weslander Quaid is Google's Chief Innovation Evangelist supporting the company's global user base, and has served as Chief Technology Officer for the Public Sector since joining Google in April of 2011. She began her career as an image scientist and systems engineer, implementing innovative technology applications that provided prescient solutions for operational needs. As a government official, she established and served in senior leadership positions including: Deputy Technical Executive for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; Intelligence Community Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Director of National Intelligence; Chief Technology Officer for the National Reconnaissance Office; and the DNI's senior representative to the Secretary of Defense's Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force. Michele has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a presence on Washington Life's 'Power 100' list of influencers (2014) and Entrepreneur Magazine's '7 Most Powerful Women to Watch' (2014). Some of her non-profit roles include the DigitalGlobe Foundation Board of Directors, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advisory Committee for Commercial Remote Sensing.
Jeffrey Manber | Managing Director, NanoRacks
Mr. Manber has three decades of experience bringing innovative space projects to the marketplace, both in manned and unmanned space exploration and utilization. Jeffrey's experience includes working as an adviser to the chairman of PanAmSat — the first privately-owned international satellite venture — as the company raised its first external rounds of financing. He also served as COO of AstroVision, which developed and patented the first realtime moving images of the Earth. As CEO of MirCorp, which leased the Russian Space Station Mir, Jeff became the only western businessman to have marketed an orbiting space station and to have conducted a commercial manned mission to space (MirCorp-1). While leading MirCorp, Mr. Manber negotiated historic space-based media and entertainment deals with space tourist Dennis Tito, Survivor television producer Mark Burnett, and movie producer James Cameron. In 2013, Mr. Manber was the recipient of NASA's Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.
Sunil Sharma | Managing Partner, Extreme Venture Partners
Mr. Sharma is currently Managing Partner of Extreme Venture Partners, a Toronto-based seed-stage investment fund focusing on opportunities in the internet, mobile application, big data, cloud computing and internet-of-things sectors. Extreme Venture Partners recently launched its second fund, which is an encore to one of the best-performing venture capital funds in Canadian history. Sunil also serves as Executive-in-Residence at Communitech, the Waterloo-based technology catalyst where he works with early-stage technology companies, and co-founded Extreme Startups, regarded as one of the elite accelerator programs in Canada. After graduating with an undergraduate degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Industrial Relations, Sunil worked as an accredited member of Canada's diplomatic service and last held the position of Head of Consulate at the Canadian Consulate in San Diego, California.
About UrtheCast Corp.
UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that is developing the world's first Ultra HD video feed of Earth, streamed from space in full color. Working with renowned aerospace partners from across the globe, UrtheCast has built, launched, installed, and will soon operate two cameras on the ISS. Video and still image data captured by the cameras will be downlinked to ground stations across the planet and displayed on the UrtheCast web platform, or distributed directly to partners and customers. UrtheCast's cameras will provide Ultra HD video and still imagery of Earth that will allow for monitoring of the environment, humanitarian relief, social events, agricultural land, etc. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker 'UR'.
For more information visit our website at www.urthecast.com.
Forward-looking Information
This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that an action or event "will" be taken or occur (or similar language) and includes statements about the plans to operate sensor and camera components on the ISS, expected commissioning timeframes, proposed image and video product offerings and expected partners and customers to distribute such products. Forward-looking statements are subject to various known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond the ability of UrtheCast to control or predict, and which may cause UrtheCast's actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied thereby, including, but not limited to, inability to access capital to finance planned projects, delays caused by third party manufacturers or partners, damage which may occur to the sensors or cameras during installation, unexpected changes in Russian, Canadian or United States government policies as well as those factors discussed in the Company's annual information form dated March 26, 2014, (the "AIF") and the Company's short form base shelf prospectus dated April 7, 2014 (the "Prospectus") which are available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, in the AIF and Prospectus, and as otherwise disclosed from time to time on UrtheCast's SEDAR profile. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as may be required by applicable Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
SOURCE UrtheCast Corp.
