Executive Vice President Juergen Petit, former managing director of Altair Engineering Germany GmbH, will head the European organisation, and Executive Vice President Nelson Dias, former managing director of Altair India Pvt., Ltd., will assume responsibility for Asia/Pacific operations. In addition, Michael Hoffmann, Ph.D., joins Altair as vice president Business Development and Marketing, European Operations. All current country offices in each of the regions will be part of one of two organisations, as geographically appropriate.

"This year marks the beginning of our third decade as a technology leader", stated James R. Scapa, president and CEO of Altair. "Our market presence in Europe remains strong with significant growth opportunity, and we continue to expand aggressively into the rapidly emerging Asia/Pacific region. Reorganizing our support and marketing efforts into two trans-national organisations makes good business sense, and should provide enhanced customer responsiveness and service across both areas.

"Juergen and Nelson are highly experienced, motivated and disciplined; they are ideally suited to their new responsibilities", James Scapa added. "Michael will bring a wealth of global business development expertise to the Altair organisation, as he directs the positioning and sales of our enterprise solutions in the European marketplace."

Juergen Petit joined Altair Engineering GmbH in 1994 from an engineering position with DaimlerChrysler in Sindelfingen, Germany. He was named managing director of Altair Engineering GmbH in 1995, and grew the regional office from three to 100 employees before being named to his current position. Petit holds a masters degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany.

Nelson Dias joined the organisation in 2002 as managing director of Altair India Pvt., Ltd., from the position of regional manager for UGS Corp. Over the past two years, he has grown the Altair India office from 25 people to more than 200. Nelson Dias holds a bachelor of engineering degree from Bombay (India) University.