The board of Hill-Rom Holdings (Batesville, Indiana) reported plans to facilitate the orderly succession and retirement of Peter Soderberg, president/CEO. Consistent with his wishes conveyed at the time of his arrival in 2006 and endorsed by the board at that time, Soderberg will formally retire as an employee of the company at the end of April 2011. Soderberg will remain as president/CEO until a successor is named, which is anticipated to occur in 2010. Hill-Rom is a maker of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry.

John Norris was named COO of Health Discovery (Savannah, Georgia). In addition to many advisory and consulting roles, Norris is also a former deputy FDA commissioner. Health Discovery is a molecular diagnostics company that uses advanced mathematical techniques to analyze large amounts of data to uncover patterns that might otherwise be undetectable.

• LCA-Vision (Cincinnati, Ohio) said that Steven Straus has resigned as CPO and a member of the company's board, effective September 25. Management of daily operations will be the responsibility of COO David Thomas and CFO Michael Celebrezze. LCA-Vision is a provider of laser vision correction services under the Lasik-Plus brand.

• NeuroFocus (Berkeley, California) said that it has named Steven Miller, PhD, to lead its neurological testing laboratory facilities. Previously, Miller was a co-founder and chief scientist for Scientific Learning. NeuroFocus specializes in bringing neuroscience knowledge and expertise to the worlds of advertising, marketing, product development and packaging, and entertainment.

• SRI International (Menlo Park, California) said that John Young, Jr. was elected to SRI's board. Young recently completed service as the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. SRI International is an independent research and technology development organization.