A. WILLIAM HIGGINS

A. William Higgins has been a director since 2009. He has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of Albany International Corporation, a global advanced textiles and materials processing company, since January 2020, serving on its board of directors since 2016, and as chairman of its board of directors from February 2019 until January 2020. He previously served as the Chairman, CEO, and President of CIRCOR International, Inc., a global diversified manufacturing company that designs, manufactures, and supplies valves and related products and services to OEMs, processors, manufacturers, and military utilities that rely on fluid control to accomplish their missions. He served in those positions from March 2008 until his retirement in December 2012. Mr. Higgins previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of CIRCOR, and prior to joining CIRCOR, he spent 13 years in a variety of senior management positions at Honeywell International and Allied Signal.

Mr. Higgins previously served as a director at Bristow Group Inc., a leading provider of industrial aviation services. Leslie Controls, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CIRCOR (and an entity for which Mr. Higgins previously served as a director and Vice President) filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2010 to eliminate certain asbestos litigation liabilities. The subsidiary successfully emerged from bankruptcy the following year.

Mr. Higgins’ professional background provides the Board with an additional perspective on talent development, international operations and global strategic development, lean manufacturing and continuous improvement processes, the aerospace and defense industries, and acquisitions.