Duos Technologies Group Inc (NASDAQ:DUOT) said on Thursday that it has appointed rail industry veteran Edmond L Harris to the company’s board, as it focuses on driving long-term partnerships and agreements with some of the industry's largest and most influential players.
The Jacksonville, Florida-based company said Harris was elected to the company’s board at the annual meeting of shareholders held on November 19, 2020.
Harris will serve as the chairman of the company's Nominating and Governance Committees and will also take a position as a member of the Audit Committee. “With this change and others previously disclosed, the Duos board composition remains at five total directors, four of whom are independent,” said the company.
READ: Duos Technologies wins $1.3 million contract from Class 1 railroad operator
Before joining Duos, Harris served as Executive Vice President of Operations for CSX Corporation (NASDAQ:CSX), also based in Jacksonville. Prior to his time at CSX, Harris held the same positions with Canadian Pacific and Illinois Central.
Throughout his career, Harris has been instrumental in developing scheduled railroading and cost reduction programs, while improving service and reliability. Harris also served as Board Chairman of Omnitrax, a regional railroad company based in Denver. Between Class 1 railroad assignments, Harris worked as an independent consultant for various rail carriers in North America, Brazil, and Australia. He has a B.S. in Business Management from the University of Illinois and served in the US Marine Corps from 1969-1973.
"On behalf of the entire Duos organization, I would like to formally welcome Ed to our Board of Directors and to its committees," said Duos Board Chair Kenneth Ehrman. "Ed has decades of leadership experience in key areas of rail and transportation systems operation, strategy implementation, and technology development, all of which are vital areas for our current as well as future operations and growth strategy.”
Ehrman noted that Duos looks forward to benefitting from his hands-on counsel and “deep industry relationships” to better the company’s customer-facing solutions and “drive long-term partnerships and agreements" with some of the "industry's largest and most influential players."
In the meantime, Harris said he admired the Duos rail inspection portal technology and believes the company is addressing “a large, unmet need.”
“The rail industry is still in the very early stages of a great technology transformation that will see hundreds of millions of dollars collectively invested over the next few years as legacy processes and systems are updated and replaced,” added Harris.
“I look forward to providing my directly applicable experience and leveraging my long-standing relationships at tier one and other customers to help make Duos a leading technology provider for our industry."
Duos specializes in automated systems with a focus on the protection of critical infrastructure and the automation of complex mechanical inspections of rail assets.
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