National Instruments (NI) reports that its co-founder, Dr. James Truchard (pictured), will retire as CEO and president on Jan. 1, 2017. He has served as CEO since the company was founded in 1976, and will remain as board chairman. NI’s board of directors has elected Alex Davern to serve as CEO and president. Davern is scheduled to be appointed to the board by the end of January. This transition is being undertaken as part of the board’s succession planning process.
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“It’s always been my goal for NI to be a company built to last,” says Truchard. “Over the last decade, in the face of a weak industrial economy, I’ve focused on helping to ensure we’re making the long-term strategic investments necessary to set NI up for future growth. I believe these major platform investments, in key areas like PXI modular instrumentation, RF measurements, CompactRIO, and our entire software platform, will continue providing NI with disruptive platform capabilities needed to expand our long-term market opportunity. Given our significant progress, I believe NI is well-positioned for the coming decade.”