New to the board is Daniel Donegan, president of semiconductor engineering design firm Simply LEDs. Prior to his current position, he worked in research and development for Hewlett-Packard.

In addition to chairman and founder Frank Fosella Jr, those taking additional terms to the OX-GN board include Stephen Chi, James Miller, Charles Skoro and Said Ahmed-Zaid. James Zamzow will serve as its senior director.

The experience brought to the table of the new board is diverse, from the insurance industry (Miller) to electrical and computer engineering (Ahmed-Zaid) to economics (Skoro). Chi has a mining background as former president of Morrison Knudsen Corporation; additionally, he serves on the board of coal producer Westmoreland Resources.

All of the members are from the Boise area, where OX-GEN is headquartered, company public relations representative Jo Murray confirmed for International Longwall News.

“Our team of directors brings us expertise in a wide range of disciplines,” said Fosella. “We look forward to working together to making emergency oxygen to everyone.

“Because our units are non-pressurized and non-explosive, they can be stored safely in mines, where it was never before feasible to keep oxygen units.”

The company said last month it plans to offer its two-hour self-contained self-rescue device, the 02 Generation System, in early 2007, and is also looking to meet certification requirements in Australia and South Africa. “We are researching the requirements for certification [and] once we confirm those requirements, we will send applications to those countries in order to receive certification to sell the two-hour units [there],” according to Murray.