Fountain Valley’s D-Link Systems Inc., a maker of networking gear that’s part of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp., recently saw a big executive shakeup.
Steven Joe, former president and chief executive who spent more than 20 years at the company, is out. So is Keith Karlsen, former executive vice president.
The two left when D-Link reorganized its regional focus and consolidated some operations in North America, South America and Canada, according to Nick Tidd, vice president of marketing for North America and vice president of sales for the Pan America operations. The changes were an-nounced earlier this month.
D-Link named Carlos Casassus Fontecilla, a 10-year company veteran who formerly served as head of Latin America, as president of Pan America (which includes all three regions). Fontecilla is based in Santiago, Chile.
Tidd, a veteran of Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com Corp., is now the top local guy at D-Link.
He lives in Toronto but will spend a good amount of time in Orange County and travel to D-Link’s customers.
The reason for the reorganization is to consolidate parts of D-Link’s businesses that were redundant, Tidd said.
“Steven Joe and Keith Karlsen’s departures were a direct result of the creation of a Pan American larger regional focus,” he said. “We have merged the U.S., Latin America and Canada (operations) where we had a lot of duplication behind the scenes. The first step to combining those together was to reassign the executive team.”
One area where the regions overlapped was that there were separate customer support groups and separate marketing and Web development teams.
“There are some signs that the economy is turning around and looking forward and we want to position the company to accelerate growth,” Tidd said.
Joe was promoted to the top spot in 2004, after serving as president of D-Link Systems’ North American operations.
He was one of the first five workers at D-Link Systems in 1986.
“I would say that it is always a tough transition when you have people in the company for that long,” Tidd said.
D-Link competes with 3Com, Linkys, an Irvine-based unit of Cisco Systems Inc., Netgear Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Corp.
BlizzCon
Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc., part of Vivendi SA’s Activision Blizzard Inc., is planning for a bigger and better fan festival this summer.
Blizzard recently announced its fourth BlizzCon gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in August.
BlizzCon gathers fans of Blizzard’s biggest online games, including the franchises for “Warcraft,” “StarCraft” and “Diablo.”
This year’s event has been expanded from three convention halls to four because of its popularity, the company said.
“We’ve been amazed by the incredible response to each of our previous BlizzCon events,” said Cofounder and Chief Executive Mike Morhaime. “We’re pleased to be bringing the convention back to Anaheim this year, and we look forward to this new opportunity to meet Blizzard gamers from around the world.”
The two-day event features play time with new Blizzard games, discussion panels with Blizzard game developers, tournaments, contests, a silent auction and, of course, the opportunity to stock up on official Blizzard gear.
The first batch of BlizzCon tickets goes on sale May 16. The second batch goes on sale May 30. Ticket prices haven’t been released.
StrataCare Sold
Irvine-based StrataCare Inc., a maker of software for managing workers’ compensation payments, was recently acquired by a pair of private equity firms via a holding company.
Private equity firms SV Life Sciences Advisers LLP and Beecken Petty O’Keefe & Co. acquired a majority stake in StrataCare.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
StrataCare’s customers include large self-insured employers, insurance companies and third-party administrators.
StrataCare helps them process bills for workers’ compensation claims.
It provides actual bill processing services and also licenses its Internet-based bill-processing software.
“We are helping our clients, who receive bills from hospitals, pharmacies and surgical centers, understand what their obligation is to those bills according to the regulations and the billing practices of those states,” said Bob McCaffrey, who heads sales and accounting at StrataCare. “We make sure the bills are adjusted to those levels for reimbursements and figure out if they are subject to reductions.”
Big customers include retailers and municipal and state governments.
“Workers’ comp costs continue to be significant,not only for private employers, insurance companies and state governments,” said John Zavoli, StrataCare’s finance chief. “What we do is provide the software or service to help our clients optimize their workers’ compensation charges, so that they are not paying more than they are required by state regulations.”
StrataCare, which started in 1998, has roughly 200 workers in Irvine.
The company doesn’t disclose financials but is profitable, according to Zavoli.
