More from the annual meeting

The boards' traditional source of information on the annual meeting, a very earnest fellow named Ed Wesnofske, has finally checked in and substantially backed up the initial reports.

In addition he reported some other details:

• Attendance at the meeting was down from previous years. That squares with the marked decline in message board activity over the past few years.
• Those members of the board of directors up for renewal were duly elected. No surprise there; their hold of power on the company is solid.
• The range for the new SPD (presumably "gen 2") is 0.5%-60% transmittance. This range is actually something that has been previously claimed, only apparently this time it is a single film capable of going the entire range, rather than it being the total range covered by various formulations of the film.
• REFR is purchasing the emulsion-making equipment for its licensees to try to get some of them "over the hump". Where exactly they are getting the money to do this, was not detailed.
• Robert Saxe's cash salary did indeed decline, but this in fact was offset by an increase in stock option compensation.

Apart from that, however, the meeting seemed very long on general observations with vague connections to REFR, and short on material events and forecasts. Which, if you think about it, is pretty accurately reflective of the company itself.

THIS JUST IN: Reports are coming in that Tadao Kurosawa retired from his post as president of Hitachi Chemical USA last February. If so, presumably it was not him at last week's meeting. Whether this means anything with respect to Hitachi's status as an SPD film producer, remains to be seen.