Tolland technology firm Gerber Scientific Inc. says the chief of its Gerber Technology division is leaving April 30 amid a flattening of the division’s hierarchy, but John R. Hancock will walk away at least $650,000 richer, thanks to a golden stock handshake, a regulatory filing shows.
Hancock’s job as Gerber Scientific’s senior vice president and president of  Gerber Technology has been deemed “redundant,” the company said in its 8-K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gerber CEO Marc T. Giles will assume Hancock’s responsibilities, the filing said.
In addition to unspecified severance payments — typically six months to several years of base salary — called for in his contract, Hancock will fully vest on his departure date with 72,246 shares of the company’s restricted stock that otherwise would have been subject to forfeiture provisions, the filing said.
Based on Gerber’s late morning stock price of $9.02, those shares are worth around $650,200.
Gerber and its technology division make automated pattern cutters and other industrial machinery and software.
Neither Gerber nor Hancock could not be immediately reached Wednesday for comment.
