CMS Enhancements Names New Top Management Team

Shortly after reporting its first profit in two years, CMS Enhancements Inc. said Thursday that it has chosen a new management team to lead the Irvine distributor and assembler of computer supplies.

Terren Peizer, 34, was elected chairman of the CMS board, replacing Jamshed (Jim) Farooquee, who co-founded the company in 1983. Farooquee also lost his post as chief executive officer.

Peizer was one of three new board members elected to the board this week, increasing the board’s size from four to seven members. Also joining were brothers Mark L. Werner, president of Manufacturers Indemnity and Insurance Co. of America in Colorado, and Eric J. Werner, that firm’s general counsel.

Peizer, chairman of a Los Angeles investment firm, once worked alongside junk bond king Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert’s Beverly Hills office. Peizer has a 36.8% stake in the $73-million computer firm, according a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Replacing Farooquee as chief executive is Hal Clark, 57, a longtime CMS Enhancement consultant. Farooquee, who was unavailable for comment, will remain on the board and with CMS in a “planning capacity,” the company said in a statement.

Clark served as president of Ingram Micro Inc., a multibillion-dollar distributor of computer products based in Santa Ana, from 1984 to 1989.

Mike Rusert, 39, CMS Enhancement chief operating officer since May, was also given the title executive vice president, the company stated.

Before joining CMS Enhancement, Rusert was general manager and executive vice president of Computer City super-stores and held various executive positions with Inacomp Computer Centers from 1981 to 1988.