Barry Lipsky

Mr. Lipsky is President and Chief Executive Officer of Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. of Burlington, New Jersey, an American Stock Exchange listed company (“FEP”), and is a member of Franklin Electronic Publishers’ Board of Directors. Franklin Electronic Publishers is a well known manufacturer and distributor of low-cost electronic handheld devices including organizers, spell checkers, dictionaries, language translators and electronic book products that are sold on a worldwide basis. Mr. Lipsky’s expertise is in the area of developing and manufacturing consumer electronic products in Pacific Rim countries to meet popular price points through mass retailing channels in the United States.

Mr. Lipsky has been with Franklin for eighteen years and is a member of its Board of Directors. He joined the Company as Vice President in February 1985, was elected Executive Vice President in 1997 and was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company in July 1999. Mr. Lipsky has been a Director or Managing Director of the Company’s Hong Kong subsidiary since its inception in 1985.

Mr. Lipsky’s expertise is in the area of developing and manufacturing consumer electronic products in Pacific Rim countries to meet popular price points through mass retailing channels in the United States. His business and technology background began with a thirteen-year tenure with Mura Corporation of Hicksville, New York, a designer and importer of consumer electronics products. Mr. Lipsky handled a variety of technical matters at Mura, including product development and product procurement, and rose to the position of Vice President of Operations.

While at Mura, Mr. Lipsky’s development and manufacturing expertise was forged with the development of the first mini headphone system for use in home high fidelity audio systems and in developing and manufacturing a line of personal portable AM/FM radio products, which was the forerunner to Sony’s popular Walkman series of products. Additionally, Mr. Lipsky’s expertise at Mura included the development and manufacturing of the world’s first cordless telephone targeted to sell at retail at prices under $100.

Coming to Franklin in 1985 with across the board experience in producing state of the art electronic products in Asia, Mr. Lipsky took on the project of producing the ACE 2000 personal computer, an Apple compatible model that was manufactured by Multitech Electronics (later known as Acer) in Taiwan. Prior to that initiative, Franklin’s personal computers were manufactured only domestically. With the success of the Ace 2000, Mr. Lipsky’s knowledge at “virtual manufacturing” abroad became critical to Franklin’s launching the ACE 500, a lower priced Apple compatible manufactured by Samsung Electronics in Korea, and the PC 8000 in a cooperative effort also with Multitech Corporation. The PC 8000 was the first IBM compatible computer to be sold at mass merchandisers in the United States. Franklin was the first company to offer both IBM compatible and Apple compatible computers to the domestic mass market at prices less than $1,000 through Sears. Additionally, under Mr. Lipsky’s guidance, Franklin provided retailers with the first computer monitors that were both IBM and Apple compatible.

As Franklin evolved from a desktop personal computer company to the inventor of the Electronic Book (the eBookman series of products), Mr. Lipsky’s expertise in low cost Asian manufacturing became even more important. Mr. Lipsky directed the enterprise’s efforts in pioneering “chip on board (COB)” manufacturing techniques for hand-held electronic books, organizers, and other consumer products.

In 1995, Mr. Lipsky was presented with the “Outstanding Contribution” awarded by LG Semicon Co., Ltd., formerly known as Goldstar. Mr. Lipsky attended New York Institute of Technology.