Comings & Goings: Bell and Howell Appoint Larry Blue as COO

By Rahul Arora
TMCnet Contributor

Bell and Howell, a provider of customer communications and commerce solutions, recently announced the appointment of Larry Blue as COO. A 35-year veteran in engineering and global, cross-functional management, Blue will replace Lior Yahalomi, managing director of operations at Versa Capital Management, LLC, who had been serving as interim COO.

Prior to working with Bell and Howell, Blue has held leadership roles with many reputed companies such as Hughes (News - Alert) Network Systems, Trojan Defense, Multek Flexible Circuits and Matrics, Inc. He most recently served as COO of RF Technologies, Inc., and president of Kokua, LLC. Blue holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.

"Larry has a strong record of innovation and success in the management of international high-tech manufacturing and marketing programs," said Bell and Howell CEO, Ramesh Ratan. "Bell and Howell is fortunate to have such a skilled executive join our team. His experience will prove invaluable as we look to refine our R&D and manufacturing processes, and explore new technologies and markets. We thank Lior for his invaluable service as CFO and COO and in ensuring a smooth transition to Larry, and wish him the very best in his next assignment at Versa."

Bell and Howell offers multi-channel communications solutions, providing messaging technologies for print, Web and mobile delivery. The company claims that its solutions are designed to be open, flexible, solve unique customer needs, and enable the highest quality and lowest cost production of relevant business communications.  Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., Bell and Howell maintains development and manufacturing facilities in Wheeling, Ill., Bethlehem, Pa., Rochester, N.Y., Dallas, Tex., and Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Recently, Bell and Howell announced the addition of marketing list rental capabilities to its Go Data solution, a 100 percent self-service data-quality and list-enhancement tool, through a partnership with Experian Marketing Services, a global provider of integrated consumer insight, targeting, data quality and cross-channel marketing. The partnership of the two companies gives marketers real-time access to a robust customer acquisition database of potential consumer and business customer listings compiled by Experian Marketing Services and integrated into Go Data's intuitive interface.