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Don Whitson has spent his career building, owning, guiding, and investing in mid-market manufacturing companies. As co-founder and CEO of Span Instruments in the mid 1970's, Mr. Whitson built Span into an instrumentation manufacturing company serving a broad range of industries. In 1994 Span was in need of a global service and marketing organization to support its customers in the semiconductor activity centers around the world. A year later that mission was accomplished when Mr. Whitson and David Ferran, CEO of Tylan General, decided to combine their two companies. This merger gave privately held Span and the publicly held Tylan General a complementary product offering and leveraged Tylan General's worldwide sales and service organization. The combination resulted in a strong union and a successful partnership between Mr. Ferran and Mr. Whitson. In 1997 Millipore Corporation acquired Tylan General.
After the sale of Tylan General, Mr. Whitson has invested in many successful private manufacturing companies, as well as ones with global recognition. From 2000-2003, Mr. Whitson was Chairman of Isotag Technology, Inc. During his tenure as Chairman, Mr. Whitson provided Isotag's management with high level leadership and guidance as the company evolved from an early stage venture to a mature manufacturing company. Mr. Whitson led the team that recruited the current CEO and oversaw the design and construction of the company's state of the art manufacturing facility. Mr. Whitson was an active investor in each of Isotag's early stage financing rounds in 2000 and 2001, and played a key role in positioning the company to raise growth capital in 2002 that has enabled Isotag to acquire additional technologies and complimentary companies. Isotag changed its name this year to Authentix to reflect its growing stature as a world leader in product authentication.
Desiring to return to active executive management, Mr. Whitson began a search in late 2003 to acquire a manufacturing company. That quest led him to Noblemen Group. It was then that two former business partners decided to once again join forces and Mr. Ferran and Mr. Whitson began working together to build a stronger Noblemen Group.
Mr. Whitson is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in finance. Mr. Whitson lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and two Samoyeds. He enjoys golf, photography, and boating. When he is not working you can find Don at his favorite island in the Bahamas, Cat Cay. He is a member of the Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh and The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California. | 