Verus Announces New COO, VP of Sales; Orrestad and Jetter Bring a Combined 47 Years of Business Planning and Strategic Sales Experience to the Verus Team

Business Wire, May 27, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 27, 2003

Verus Inc., a leading provider of web solutions to hospitals and health systems, today announced the appointment of Chuck Orrestad as chief operating officer, and Paul H. Jetter as vice president of sales for the Eastern U.S. region.

Orrestad will oversee all of Verus' corporate operations and development, including Web services, client services, project management and development. Jetter will lead sales, marketing, and business development efforts on the east coast.

"As Verus grows as a technology company we're glad to have Chuck and Paul's healthcare industry knowledge to guide us," said Thomas C. Lawry, president and CEO of Verus. "It's a step forward to build out our senior management team with people who have such deep expertise in product management, technical development and overall sales savvy."

Orrestad comes to Verus with a record of delivering profitable, market-leading technology products to all major international markets. His past experience includes time as a technical contributor at Bell Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson, as well as holding a key senior management role as vice president of R&D and technical operations at Physio-Control Medtronic Corporation, world-wide leader in monitoring and therapeutic devices for acute cardiac care. More recently, Orrestad served as COO of Conversay Corporation, innovators of speech recognition and text-to-speech technology and as senior vice president of operations for Tegris Corporation, a leading IT infrastructure and enterprise applications provider for the real estate industry. Orrestad holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington and a master of science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Jetter has a history of growing sales territories and product lines, as well as attracting and training high-performing people. His experience in enterprise software, knowledge exchange, e-learning, e-commerce and collaborative portal development will be effective for Verus to help hospitals elevate their current websites and improve their web-based communications efforts. Jetter was most recently director of sales, Eastern U.S., for Virginia-based Ciraden, Inc., a leading application services provider (ASP) vertically focused on the healthcare arena. Prior to Ciraden, Jetter served in leading the sales force development at a variety of high tech companies, including Novarra, Docent and the Alcon Labs Division of Nestle, S.A. He is also an experienced fundraiser, having consulted and orchestrated numerous capital campaigns for various non-profit organizations. Jetter has a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York.

About Verus

Since its inception in 1996, Verus has helped more than 100 hospitals and healthcare organizations, including America's largest not-for-profit health system, plan, develop and manage strategically focused Web services that build revenue, strengthen customer loyalty and decrease costs. Verus' Web products and services utilize a best practices approach, leading-edge technology and high-quality service, and in the past two years, more Verus clients have received prestigious, national eHealthcare Leadership Awards than any other Web services firm. Verus, which listed 18th on Puget Sound Business Journal's 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in October 2002, is a privately owned company with headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.verus-tech.com or call 888/600-0800.