Tidewater, which owns and operates the largest fleet of offshore support vessels in the industry, announced that Larry T. Rigdon has been elected Chairman of the Board effective October 28th.
Rigdon replaces Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr., who has recently resigned from the board, said a press note.
Rigdon has been a member of the Tidewater Board of Directors since August 2017. He has extensive prior experience as an executive at Tidewater. Rigdon served as Interim Chief Executive Officer of Tidewater for the five-month period ended March 2018 and had previously joined the Company in 1992 upon the merger with Zapata Gulf Marine Corporation.
After successive roles of increasing responsibility, he left the company as Executive Vice President in 2002. He then successfully founded and grew Rigdon Marine Corporation to an owner of 28 offshore service vessels, selling the company in June 2008 to GulfMark Offshore, where he became a board member thereof until 2010.Rigdon also currently serves as a director of Professional Rental Tools, LLC.
Coincident with the merger of Tidewater and GulfMark in 2018, the Tidewater board was expanded from seven to ten members. Since then, the board has been in a process of determining its optimal size and composition.
The board determined that operational efficiency is a key success factor for the Company as it addresses long-standing challenges facing the OSV industry and executes on the opportunities afforded the industry’s best-capitalized and leading global operator. In this regard, the board is committed to lead by example and will “do more with less”.
The board believes a smaller board will not only be more cost-effective, but will enable the board to be more responsive and efficient as it advances the Company’s strategic goals. Accordingly, the board committed to a reduction in its size to seven members at the next annual meeting of stockholders.
Additionally, the company announces that the size of the board has been reduced from ten to eight members effective immediately. The immediate reduction in board size is the result of the resignation of Dr. Thomas R. Bates, Jr. and Mr. Steven L. Newman. These resignations were not the result of any known disagreements between the resigning directors and management or the board of Tidewater.