Teledyne-Commodore LLC appoints Major General Gerald G. Watson President and Chief Executive Officer

Business Wire, Oct 30, 1996

NEW YORK, NY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--October 30, 1996--Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc. (AMEX: CXI) announced today that Major General (Ret.) Gerald G. Watson has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Teledyne-Commodore LLC, a joint venture formed to apply the solvated electron technology (SET) process to the destruction of chemical warfare weapons and agents. The JV members will include Teledyne Environmental, Inc. and Commodore Government Environmental Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Commodore Applied Technologies. Teledyne Environmental, Inc. is affiliated with the Teledyne Brown Engineering division of Teledyne Industries, Inc. Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc. is 72% owned by Commodore Environmental Services, Inc.

General Watson had been the Army's Chief Chemical Officer and, in his last posting before retiring in 1992, director of the Defense Nuclear Agency. Previously, he had directed the construction and operation of the first large chemical weapons destruction plant at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Colorado, in which over 7,000 tons of chemical agents were successfully destroyed.

Most recently, General Watson was General Manager of EG&G Alabama, Inc., where he was responsible for marketing of engineering and management services to the U.S. Space and Missile Defense programs and for the development of chemical agent destruction strategies. His first job in industry following a 34-year military career was as Project Manager for Brown & Root, Inc., developing strategies for both the Anniston, AL chemical weapons destruction facility and the Russian Federation CW weapons destruction program.

"General Watson's experience at the highest levels of government and industry uniquely qualify him to manage the commercialization of Commodore's proprietary solvated electron technology (SET) process," said Thomas E. Noel, Commodore's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Chemical weapons demilitarization is an emerging market of international scope and opportunity, and our SET process will help the U.S. achieve its objective of eliminating the entire class of chemical weapons systems worldwide."

Paul E. Hannesson, Chairman of Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc., said, "Based on independent tests to date, SET is the only known non-thermal technology that can effectively and efficiently neutralize all U.S. stockpile chemical agents. Because of General Watson's experience, vision and leadership, Teledyne-Commodore will be able to more effectively exploit defined opportunities within the U.S. stockpile and non-stockpile chemical weapons demilitarization programs."

The joint venture was formed August 9, 1996. In tests conducted at federally licensed, independent surety laboratories, the SET process destroyed more than pound quantities (a commercial benchmark) of all U.S. stockpile chemical warfare agents, including mustard (HD), Lewisite, and nerve gases (VX and CB). In other independent laboratory tests, SET has destroyed solid residues (heels) of chemical warfare agents, as well as decontaminating both metal and plastic surfaces. In addition, SET is the only technology that has successfully decontaminated charcoal filters after they have been exposed to agents.

SET uses readily available materials to neutralize the agent, producing waste products that are post-treated for normal disposal. No detectable agent remains from the non-thermal, ambient temperature process, and the overall waste stream is the least of any chemical agent neutralization process.

Commodore discovered SET's application for chemical warfare agents in August 1995 while conducting tests that ultimately won SET the only nationwide, non-thermal, portable permit issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to destroy PCBs in soils and on metallic surfaces. During those tests Commodore successfully destroyed the pesticide malathion, which is an accepted surrogate material for proving the neutralization of chemical warfare agents. Commodore then began chemical agent testing at federally licensed surety laboratories late in 1995. The successful results were originally presented at a NATO chemical weapon demilitarization workshop held at Prague, Czechoslovakia on July 2, 1996.

Chemical weapons demilitarization is a worldwide effort to eliminate chemical weapons within 10 years, as is specified in the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty the U.S. Senate is expected to ratify in 1997. Russia is known to have weapons stockpiles larger than the U.S. stockpiles. China has an extensive non- stockpiled weapons and remediation problem as a result of weapons remaining in China following World War II. It is estimated to be a $60 billion worldwide market, with the U.S. stockpile estimated at about $13 billion with other U.S. non-stockpile opportunities exceeding $10 billion.

While Teledyne-Commodore's SET process is the first technological process to be able to neutralize all know chemical agents in U.S. stockpiles, SET is in the process of completing its qualifying work-ups for the Department of Defense.