Six Days Before He Started, the Loss Widened

On August 4, 2026, Fuel Tech published two documents. The first reported a net loss of $1.2 million on $6.5 million of quarterly revenue, wider than the $0.7 million loss a year earlier. The second named the person who would own the next one.

Ramesh Nuggihalli, appointed president and chief executive officer, was due to start six days later.

The Search Took Months

The board made the decision on July 31. Its SEC filing is unusually insistent about process: the selection followed a "thorough, months-long executive search process" with multiple candidates evaluated and interviewed. The man he replaces, Vincent J. Arnone, had spent 27 years at the company, the last 11 as chief executive. Arnone resigned effective August 10, stays on as an employee through September 15, and keeps his seat on the board. Nuggihalli joins that board.

What the board bought is a small company with a specific product line. Fuel Tech sells emissions-control systems and water-treatment technology to utilities and industrial plants, and says its equipment is installed on more than 2,100 utility, industrial and municipal units.

What he inherited was not a clean slate.

The Numbers On Day One

Revenue rose 17 percent in the second quarter. Gross margin fell to 41 percent from 46 percent. Selling and administrative costs of $3.6 million consumed 55.4 percent of revenue. The net loss widened from $0.7 million to $1.2 million, or four cents a share.

The margin slide has two sources. The air pollution control segment, known as APC, grew revenue 11 percent to $2.8 million, but its gross margin dropped to 36 percent from 44 percent; the company attributes that to product and project mix. FUEL CHEM, the chemical-treatment segment that sells to boiler operators, grew 21 percent to $3.7 million while its margin slipped only to 45 percent from 47 percent, which the company blames on demonstration, freight and maintenance-labor costs. The segment that is growing the backlog is the one whose margin fell furthest.

Against that sat a different set of figures. Backlog in the air pollution control segment stood at $14.3 million on June 30, against $7.0 million at the end of 2025, with $10 million of it tied to a utility grid enhancement project in the Midwest. Counting new awards, Arnone put the effective backlog at about $17 million, "more than double the backlog at the end of 2025." The balance sheet held roughly $30 million in cash and investments and no long-term debt.

A company with money, work in hand and a margin problem. And a third quarter that, in Arnone's words, has historically been strong for the FUEL CHEM segment.

The Seat He Left Before

Nuggihalli has done this kind of job once in public view, and the record on how it ended is short.

On April 6, 2021, CECO Environmental named him chief operating officer. The announcement described a career at Xylem, where he was president and managing director for Greater Asia, at Pentair, where he ran the Middle East, and earlier at Tyco, Ametek, General Electric and Babcock & Wilcox. His own statement that day was a thesis about the company: "I believe CECO is uniquely positioned to accelerate its position as an environmental solutions provider for diversified industries."

On July 14, 2023, CECO disclosed that he would cease serving as chief operating officer effective August 20 and leave the company that day. That is 28 months after the appointment. The filing gives no reason.

Nor do Fuel Tech's release or filing describe the three years between CECO and this job. They name CECO as the role he held before joining, and list engineering degrees from the University of Mysore and McGill, an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier and an M.Phil. from the University of Pennsylvania. Outside work, he sits on the boards of two nonprofits in the Philadelphia area, Chester County Food Bank and Chester County Futures. The filing also states that he has no family relationship with any Fuel Tech director or executive officer.

The Terms Of The Job

The employment agreement, dated July 31, sets a base salary of $440,000 and, from fiscal 2027, a target bonus of 75 percent of base. It adds a one-time grant of 300,000 restricted stock units that vest in three equal annual installments.

One clause looks past the operating plan. After a change of control, he may elect a transaction completion bonus of 0.5 percent of total enterprise value, capped at three times base salary, but only if the deal yields at least $4.00 per share to common stockholders. The filing presents it as an alternative to severance. It does not say what prompted it.

The Thesis He Led With

His own framing on the first day was demand, not turnaround. He called the appointment "at what is truly an inflection point" in the company's history and argued that new technologies, population growth and the build-out of AI infrastructure are driving sharp increases in energy and water use. In his telling, "robust emissions control and water treatment technologies have never been more critical."

Arnone, handing over, said Nuggihalli's background, temperament and accomplishments make him "exceptionally well positioned to lead Fuel Tech into its next chapter of growth and development."

The test is more concrete than either statement. The third quarter ends September 30, the first to include Nuggihalli, and it is the one Arnone flagged as seasonally strong. If the doubled backlog converts to revenue while margins recover from 41 percent, the thesis has its first evidence. If the loss widens again, the margin question that opened his first week will still be open when the quarter closes.