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Board of Directors

Thomas Loarie
Chairman of the Board

Thomas Loarie joined Refocus Group in 2014 and now serves as the Chairman of Board of Directors. With his extensive Class III medical device experience, he assists the board and executive team in the clinical development and commercialization of VisAbility™ Micro-Insert System for presbyopia.

Mr. Loarie is also the Co-founder and CEO of BryoLogyx, Inc. He has over 45 years in the healthcare industry that includes 30+ years leading venture-backed healthcare start-ups and 13 years with American Hospital Supply Corp (now Baxter), where he was president of the American Heyer-Schulte Division. He also has global operating and commercialization experience and has brought more than 20 innovative products to market across 11 healthcare domains. Mr. Loarie formerly served as assistant professor of surgery at Creighton University, and currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Jacobs School of Engineering at University of California at San Diego.

He has a B.S.M.E. from the University of Notre Dame, and attended graduate school at the Universities of Minnesota and Chicago.

Mike Judy
Director

Mike Judy joined Refocus Group in 2013 as the Chief Executive Officer, bringing with him 30 years of experience in the ophthalmology industry. Prior to joining Refocus, he most recently served as Chief Commercial Officer for AcuFocus, leading the sales and marketing team as they introduced the KAMRA™ corneal inlay.

Mr. Judy’s previous experience also includes his role as the Vice President of Global Surgical Marketing for Bausch and Lomb, where he was responsible for the cataract and refractive businesses. He joined B&L through the acquisition of Eyeonics, manufacturer of the Crystalens®. At Eyeonics, Mr. Judy led the sales and marketing team that captured the number one market share position in the premium IOL market. He has also served on various industry boards throughout his career.

Mr. Judy has a BA from Princeton University.

Harry Jacobson, MD
Director

Dr. Harry Jacobson has been a director of Refocus Group since 2011. His background is rich with medical, academic, and investment experience, giving him unique insight to contribute to the Refocus board. He is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of the Health Care Investment Group.

Previously, Dr. Jacobson was a cofounder of the dialysis services company Renal Care Group. Currently, He serves on the boards of Merck, Kinetic Concepts, and Ingram Industries. He spent 7 years on the faculty at University of Texas Southwestern and 25 years at Vanderbilt University. From 1997 to 2009, Dr. Jacobson led the Vanderbilt University Medical Center as the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. He also published more than 100 scientific papers, edited a major textbook in Nephrology, and served 2 years as a physician in the Army’s burn unit at Fort Sam Houston. In 2002, Dr. Jacobson’s was elected to the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine for his contributions to medicine.

Dr. Jacobson has an MD from the University of Illinois, completed his medical residency at Johns Hopkins, and received specialty training in Nephrology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Thomas Lyles, Jr.
Director

Thomas Lyles has served as Director of Refocus Group since 2005. As a member on a number of boards within the health care industry, he brings a solid legal and investment background to Refocus Group. In addition to his position on the Refocus board, Mr. Lyles serves as an advisory director to Majesty Hedge Funds, and sits on the boards of CeloNova BioSciences, Ambulatory Services of America, digiChart, MedSolutions, Informatics Corporation of America, and Outpatient Imaging Affiliates.

Mr. Lyles has served as president (since 1998) and general counsel (since 1990) of Mission City Management, where he has managed a multi-company investment portfolio, including public and large private companies. From 1984 to 1989, he was a senior associate with the law firm Haynes and Boone. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Lyles was an accountant with KPMG.

Mr. Lyles received his JD from SMU Law School in 1983 and his degree in accounting from Texas A&M University in 1979.

Donald Phillips
Director

Mr. Phillips has over 34 years of investment management experience managing large pools of pension assets in the capacity of both a limited and a general partner. Prior to founding WP Global Partners in 2005, Mr. Phillips was the Chief Investment Officer and CEO for WestAM (U.S.), a subsidiary of WestLB, a large German Bank. At WestAM he directed the investment strategy and oversaw the firm’s approximately $3 billion portfolio in commitments to private equity funds, real estate, and direct investments. In addition, he was a member of WesAM’s Board of Directors. He assumed these roles at WestAM in 2000 when they acquired the private equity business of Forstmann-Leff International, Inc. Mr. Phillips had been President of Forstmann-Leff from 1997 to 2000, and during that period was responsible for the strategic process of building and managing the global investment management firm. Forstmann-Leff International is a multi-asset class institutional investment firm with offices in Chicago, New York, and Liverpool, England. The firm has been managing assets for high net worth individuals, pension funds and other institutions for almost 30 years with assets under management that exceed $85 billion. The styles of managing assets include U.S. mid-cap value oriented equities, fixed income that includes core U.S., high yield and global portfolio management in addition to the management of private placement or alternative asset classes for large institutions

From 1990 until 1997, Mr. Phillips was Chairman of Equity Institutional Investors where he was responsible for the formation of four real estate funds with equity commitments of over $2.5 billion. These funds have been subsequently consolidated into a public company, Equity Office Properties that was sold to Blackstone for $50 billion in 2007. During the same time period at Equity Group Investments, he was instrumental in establishing the $1.1 billion Zell/Chilmark Fund to buy good companies with bad balance sheets. The fund acquired seven public and private companies that have combined sales of $8 billion and over 50,000 employees. Also, Mr. Phillips was President of Capstone Holdings Corp., a publicly traded insurance holding company and board member of other publicly traded companies within the Equity Group.

His previous positions include eight years as the Chief Investment Officer for Ameritech Corporation, where he managed all asset classes of Ameritech’s $15 billion pension fund. The Ameritech fund was an early investor in private equity, venture capital and commercial real estate. His efforts at Ameritech were recognized by the Institutional Investor Magazine, which sleected him as one of the country’s top 10 pension fund managers. Recently, he was awarded the Richard J. Daley Medal by the Illinois Venture Capital Association which recognizes “extraordinary contributions to the Illinois Economy resulting from private equity investing.” He has an M.B.A. in finance from Northern Illinois University and a B.A. in business from Western Illinois University.