JDS Uniphase Shuffles Management

OTTAWA, June 14 -- JDS Uniphase Corp. has altered its management team in a bid to sharpen its focus on operations. The company said that Greg Dougherty, 41, would take over as chief operating officer of the entire company -- a broader role than his previous job as COO of the company's amplification and transmission group, which includes active components used to pump, generate and amplify light signals in fiber optic networks.
In his new role, Dougherty will also oversee a second JDS unit, for WDM switching and thin-film products. Charles Abbe, 60, president and COO of that group of passive components used to boost network capacity, has retired. JDS also said that chief executive and co-chairman Jozef Straus, 54, had taken on the additional title of president.
"The move of (Abbe) retiring and Greg becoming COO for the entire company is really an important part of how we see the restructuring," said JDS spokesman Jeff Wild. "It also allows the organization to become one instead of two."