Thales Navigation Taps Bob Miklosko to Lead Worldwide Engineering Organization

Santa Clara, Calif. – May 25, 2005 – Thales has appointed engineering veteran Bob Miklosko, most recently of Panasonic Mobile Communications and NEC, to lead the worldwide engineering organization for its navigation business.

As vice president of worldwide engineering, Miklosko takes leadership of an international engineering team creating GPS navigation and positioning technologies and products across four businesses, including vehicle navigation, outdoor handhelds and content, survey and GIS solutions, and OEM.

Miklosko joins Thales most recently from a four-year post at Panasonic Mobile Communications Development where he served as the vice president of product planning and product engineering. At Panasonic and throughout his more than 20 year career in product development and engineering, Miklosko has accumulated key experience in all phases of the product lifecycle, ranging from technology and product planning through design, verification, launch, post-launch, and end-of-life support.

“Bob’s breadth of experience in mass consumer technologies and his international business experience are important to his charter here at Thales,” said Henry Gaillard, chief executive officer of Thales’ navigation business. “He has proven success in building and motivating multi-site teams which is key for the challenges of a global and growing company.”

Before Panasonic, Miklosko directed a cross-functional product development team as the director of product engineering at NEC America. Miklosko held product management, project management, and senior engineering positions at companies such as JRC International, Ericsson, Westinghouse Electric, and Airborne Instruments Laboratory.

Bob holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, New York, and an M.S. in Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University.

About Thales
Thales is an international electronics and systems group serving the defense, aerospace, services and security markets. The group employs 61,500 people worldwide and generated revenues of10 billion euros in 2004.

Thales’ navigation business is one of the world’s leaders in positioning, navigation and guidance equipment with global operations. Thales markets its Magellan® brand GPS solutions in the consumer electronics, recreation, and automotive markets, and its GPS and GNSS professional products in the survey, GIS/Mapping, and OEM markets.

Through its joint venture with Hertz, Thales has developed the Hertz NeverLost® vehicle navigation system.