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Tidewater Elects Larry Rigdon as Chairman
Tidewater, which owns and operates the largest fleet of offshore
support vessels in the industry, announced that Larry T. Rigdon
has been elected Chairman of the Board effective October 28th.
Rigdon replaces Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr., who has recently
resigned from the board, said a press note.
Rigdon has been a member of the Tidewater Board of Directors
since August 2017. He has extensive prior experience as an
executive at Tidewater. Rigdon served as Interim Chief Executive
Officer of Tidewater for the five-month period ended March 2018
and had previously joined the Company in 1992 upon the merger
with Zapata Gulf Marine Corporation.
After successive roles of increasing responsibility, he left the
company as Executive Vice President in 2002. He then successfully
founded and grew Rigdon Marine Corporation to an owner of 28
offshore service vessels, selling the company in June 2008 to
GulfMark Offshore, where he became a board member thereof until
2010.Rigdon also currently serves as a director of Professional
Rental Tools, LLC.
Coincident with the merger of Tidewater and GulfMark in 2018, the
Tidewater board was expanded from seven to ten members. Since
then, the board has been in a process of determining its optimal
size and composition.
The board determined that operational efficiency is a key success
factor for the Company as it addresses long-standing challenges
facing the OSV industry and executes on the opportunities
afforded the industry's best-capitalized and leading global
operator. In this regard, the board is committed to lead by
example and will "do more with less".
The board believes a smaller board will not only be more
cost-effective, but will enable the board to be more responsive
and efficient as it advances the Company's strategic goals.
Accordingly, the board committed to a reduction in its size to
seven members at the next annual meeting of stockholders.
Additionally, the company announces that the size of the board
has been reduced from ten to eight members effective immediately.
The immediate reduction in board size is the result of the
resignation of Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr. and Mr. Steven L. Newman.
These resignations were not the result of any known disagreements
between the resigning directors and management or the board of
Tidewater.
Nov 1, 2019
