Mark K. Holdsworth
Chairman of the Board
Mr. Holdsworth, 57, has been a Board member since December 2020 and currently serves as Chairman of the Board and as a member of the Audit Committee, the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, and the Compensation Committee. Mr. Holdsworth is the Founder and Managing Partner of The Holdsworth Group, LLC, (“THG”), which he founded in 2019. THG is a trusted and sophisticated capital partner, advisor, and curator of alternative investments for family offices and corporations worldwide. From 1999-2018, Mr. Holdsworth was a Co-Founder, Managing Partner and an Operating Partner of Tennenbaum Capital Partners, LLC (“TCP”), a Los Angeles-based private multi-strategy investment firm that was acquired by BlackRock, Inc. in August 2018, and was a Managing Director at BlackRock until April 2019. Additionally, Mr. Holdsworth is the Founder of Holdsworth & Co., LLC, a private family office. Mr. Holdsworth has over 20 years of board experience and specializes in active management oversight, strategy, M&A activity and complex financings. He has also served as a board director or board chairperson of several public and private companies in a variety of industries. Mr. Holdsworth is currently a Director of Parsons Corporation (NYSE: PSN), where he serves as Chairman of the Corporate Governance and Responsibility Committee, and as a member of the Executive Committee. Mr. Holdsworth earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College, a Bachelor of Science degree (with Honors) from the California Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.
Gerald T. Garland
Mr. Garland, 73, has been a Board member since 2017 and currently serves on the Board of Directors as the Chairman of the Audit Committee as well as a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and Compensation Committee. Mr. Garland was most recently Senior Vice President of Solutions Development and Product Management for TESSCO Technologies, a publicly-traded value-added distributor and solutions provider for the wireless industry. Mr. Garland also served as Senior Vice President of the Commercial Division at TESSCO, where he was responsible for sales, business and product development and product management at the Company’s core wireless communications business. He was previously Director of Business Development at American Express Tax and Business Services from 2002 to 2003, where he was involved in an expanded asset recovery capability for Fortune 1000 corporations. From 2000 to 2001, he was Chief Financial Officer at Mentor Technologies, a developer of on-line, Cisco certification training products. Mr. Garland was Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at TESSCO Technologies from 1993 to 1999 during the Company’s successful Initial Public Offering and oversaw TESSCO’s annual sales expansion from $50 million to over $190 million. Prior to joining TESSCO, Mr. Garland held leadership positions at Bank of America and Stanley Black & Decker. Mr. Garland received his MBA, with a concentration in Finance, from Loyola University and his Bachelor of Science in Business Management and Accounting from Towson University. He is currently the Managing Director at Inscite Consulting, on the Board of Directors and Chief Adviser to the World Trade Center Institute and on the Executive Advisory Board of Patriot Capital. He is also on the Executive Committee of Communications Electronics, Inc. and the Board of SOZO Children.
Sherry Cefali
Ms. Cefali, 61, was appointed to the Board in June 2019 and currently serves as the Chair of the Compensation Committee and Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee as well as a member of the Audit Committee. Ms. Cefali is currently a managing director in the transactions opinions practice at Duff & Phelps and head of the firm’s Los Angeles office. Ms. Cefali has over 30 years of experience rendering fairness and solvency opinions and determining valuations of companies and securities. She is a member of the Fairness and Solvency Opinion Senior Review Committee at Duff & Phelps. Prior to joining Duff & Phelps in 1990, she was a vice president with Houlihan Lokey. Ms. Cefali received her M.B.A. from the University of Southern California and her B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Ms. Cefali holds the FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses. Ms. Cefali also serves as an officer and a director on the board of the Women’s Leadership Council. In January 2019, the Los Angeles Business Journal named Ms. Cefali as one of the Top Women in Banking.
Kay L. Tidwell
Ms. Tidwell, 46, joined our Board in September 2022. Tidwell serves as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer of Hudson Pacific Properties, Inc. (NYSE: HPP), a unique provider of end-to-end real estate solutions for tech and media tenants, where she is responsible for the company’s corporate legal function, overseeing corporate governance matters, SEC and NYSE compliance, insurance and litigation, as well as managing outside counsel. Prior to Hudson Pacific, Tidwell was an attorney at Latham & Watkins LLP, where she began her legal career in the Los Angeles office, advising on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters, including Hudson Pacific’s IPO. Tidwell also worked as the U.S. associate in the German offices of Latham & Watkins. Tidwell has also worked in the legal department of Deutsche Bank in Germany and served as a U.S. legal advisor to the German Federal Ministry of Justice as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow. She is a member of the Women’s Leadership Council in Los Angeles and serves as the Chairperson of the Nareit Corporate Governance Council. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, magna cum laude, from Yale College and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.
Robert D. Dawson
Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Dawson, 50, has been the Company’s Chief Executive Officer since July 17, 2017. Effective July 21, 2018, Mr. Dawson was appointed to the Company’s Board to also serve as a director. Prior to joining RF Industries on July 17, 2017, Mr. Dawson was President and CEO of Vision Technology Services, an information technology consulting and project management company that was acquired by BG Staffing. He spent 2007-2013 at TESSCO Technologies, a publicly traded distributor of wireless products and services. At TESSCO Mr. Dawson held multiple executive roles in sales, marketing, product management and strategy culminating with being Vice President of Sales, responsible for TESSCO’s sales organization and leading a team delivering more than $700 million in sales. He joined TESSCO through the 2007 acquisition of NetForce Solutions, a technology training and consulting firm that he co-founded in 2000 and led as the Chief Executive Officer through seven years of growth before being acquired by TESSCO. Mr. Dawson received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Hillsdale College.
Committee Composition
Name | Audit Committee | Compensation Committee | Nominating & Corporate Governance Committee |
---|---|---|---|
Mark K. Holdsworth* | |||
Sherry Cefali | |||
Gerald T. Garland | |||
Kay L. Tidwell | |||
Robert D. Dawson |
* Chairman of the Board | Chair | Member |
Board Diversity Matrix
Total Number of Directors: 5
PART I
Gender Identity
Female | Male | Non-Binary | Did Not Disclose Gender |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Directors | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
PART II
Demographic Background
Female | Male | Non-Binary | Did Not Disclose Gender |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
African American or Black | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Alaskan Native or Native American | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Asian | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hispanic or Latinx | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
White | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Two or More Races or Ethnicities | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
LGBTQ+ | 0 | |||
Did Not Disclose Demographic Background | 0 |