Company: OCC
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form Type: PRE 14A
Source: 0001437749-25-004188
Chunk: 38

Company: OPTICAL CABLE CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form: PRE 14A
Chunk 38
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 from May 2002 through September 2003. Ms. Smith was named Corporate Secretary of the Company effective June 2004. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Smith was the Corporate Controller for RBX Corporation. Ms. Smith is a CPA and has over 12 years of experience in public accounting with KPMG LLP. Ms. Smith left KPMG LLP in December 2001. Ms. Smith holds a bachelor of science degree in business with a major in accounting from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

There are no family relationships among the Directors or executive officers of the Company.

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DIRECTOR COMPENSATION</div>

Overview

The Company seeks to recruit and retain qualified non-employee Board members that are able to positively contribute to the success of the Company for the benefit of the Company’s various stakeholders, the most important of which are its shareholders, but also includes the Company’s customers, its employees, and the communities in which the Company operates.

Non-employee directors of the Company receive cash and share-based compensation for their service to OCC. Share-based compensation is granted under the Company’s 2017 Stock Incentive Plan, and previously under predecessor plans.

The Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors recommends annual compensation for non-employee Board members, administers the 2017 Plan and successor stock incentive plans, and administered other predecessor stock incentive plans. The Board approves compensation for non-employee Board members, typically each year after the annual meeting of shareholders, including stock award grants to non-employee directors.

Share-based compensation is an important part of non-employee Board member compensation, since it aligns the financial interests of the members of the Board with the shareholders.

The 2017 Stock Incentive Plan permits various methods of providing share-based compensation to non-employee directors. The Compensation Committee and the Board prefer that share-based compensation for non-employee directors be in the form of stock awards. The Compensation Committee and the Board believe that the use of stock awards, rather than stock options (by way of example), tends to be less dilutive to shareholders and also may tend to result in a lower expense to the Company under current U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

When stock award grants vest, the non-employee directors incur a cash income tax withholding liability on non-cash taxable income (unlike stock options, by way of example). A non-employee director can either “net vest” by surrendering a portion of the vesting Common Shares to cover his or