General Hugh Shelton Elected Chairman of Red Hat Board of Directors

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced General H. Hugh Shelton (U.S. Army Retired) has been elected to serve as chairman of Red Hat's board of directors. A member of Red Hat's board of directors since April 2003, General Shelton previously held the position of Lead Director and currently serves on the Audit and Compensation Committees. He succeeds Matthew Szulik, former Red Hat CEO.

"General Shelton is an individual of the utmost integrity. He has excelled in the numerous roles and positions held throughout his career and as a dedicated member of Red Hat's board of directors for more than seven years," said Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO, Red Hat. "General Shelton possesses the right combination of leadership, experience and industry knowledge to help guide Red Hat toward achieving its future goals."

General Shelton became the 14th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer in the United States armed forces and the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, on Oct. 1, 1997, and served two terms.

From January 2002 until April 2006, General Shelton served as president, International Sales, for M.I.C. Industries, an international manufacturing company. He has served on the boards of several public companies including Protective Products of America, Inc., Anheuser-Busch Companies, CACI International Inc. and Anteon International Corporation.

General Shelton received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award conferred by the United States Congress. Among his other numerous military awards are four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, two Army Distinguished Service Medals, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor and the Purple Heart. He has been decorated by 16 foreign governments. Civilian awards include the state of North Carolina's highest award for public service, and the Eisenhower Award from the Business Executives for National Security.

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About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for six consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with virtualization, applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

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