Picarro Expands Executive Team with Subra Sankar as Vice President of Engineering

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Picarro Inc. today announced the appointment of Dr. Subra Sankar as vice president of engineering. Dr. Sankar brings to Picarro more than two decades of engineering and R&D expertise from the life sciences, semiconductor, and high technology instrumentation markets. At Picarro, he will oversee hardware and software engineering as the company expands its product line in the scientific research and industrial markets.

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Dr. Sankar is an accomplished strategic leader with extensive functional and technical experience. Before joining Picarro he was at Artium Technologies, Inc., which he co-founded and served as vice president of engineering, with responsibilities ranging from the development of advanced particle characterization instrumentation to business strategy. Prior to Artium, he was the senior director of engineering at Illumina Inc., where he led the instrument development and consumable engineering activities related to next generation DNA sequencers. Dr. Sankar's work at Illumina enabled the company to dominate the high throughput sequencing market and revolutionize genomics research and clinical diagnostics. Dr. Sankar also held senior operations and engineering positions at KLA-Tencor and Schlumberger Ltd. He holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

"Demand for Picarro's products, both research instruments and industrial solutions in the wake of the natural gas boom, calls for increased transparency of emissions and regulations," said Michael Woelk, CEO of Picarro. "Subra's experience in developing fully integrated solutions was very appealing to us at Picarro. His understanding of product development and customer requirements combined with his team building and operational experience will be powerful assets for Picarro."

"Picarro is leading the transformation of the natural gas and greenhouse gases regulatory compliance market by offering innovative solutions based on its CRDS technology. It is an excellent time to join the company when the opportunities seem endless," said Dr. Subra Sankar. "Picarro's engineering team is extremely talented, and I'm excited to be a part of this team and look forward to scaling Picarro's products from the scientific to the commercial markets."

The appointment of Dr. Sankar adds to a number of important milestones for Picarro. Last month, Picarro announced a three-year managed services contract with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for multiple Picarro Surveyor™ natural gas leak detection systems. In the third quarter of 2012, Picarro secured $7 million in new financing and announced the addition of two other executives to its leadership team, Vice President of Marketing Suresh Pisharody and Vice President of Business Development Tim Clark, as well as the addition of Dr. Luc Vincent to Picarro's Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Sankar will be based in Picarro's Santa Clara, California, USA headquarters and will report to CEO Michael Woelk.

About Picarro Inc.

Picarro is the world's leading producer of stable isotope and gas concentration measurement systems for science and industry. Picarro's products serve a wide variety of applications, including: Earth sciences, air quality, greenhouse gas and fugitive emissions measurements, energy exploration and distribution, and supply chain integrity. Deployed on all seven continents in places as diverse as the Greenland Ice Cap, The Eiffel Tower, NASA aircraft, and Pacific Gas & Electric's natural gas leak detection vehicles, Picarro's solutions are unparalleled in their precision, ease of use, portability, and reliability. The company's products are all designed and manufactured at Picarro's Santa Clara, California headquarters and exported to countries worldwide. Picarro's technology is based on dozens of patents related to cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS). Investors include Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Focus Ventures, Greylock Partners, Mingxin China Growth Fund, and NTT Finance. For more information, please visit www.picarro.com.

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SOURCE Picarro Inc.