Morin Out at IndX; Company ‘In Talks’
By ANDREW SIMONS
Dennis Morin has left Aliso Viejo’s IndX Software Corp. less than a year after joining as the company’s chief executive.
“He was very involved with the company for some time,” said Matt Witty, IndX’s new chief executive. “But this company was very close to not making it.”
Morin, who started Irvine-based Wonder-ware Corp., couldn’t be reached for this story.
IndX, which makes software for monitoring business data, fell on hard times and needed funding to survive, according to Witty. Newport Beach-based MarWit Capital, where Witty is a founding partner, led a group of four firms that recently backed IndX.
Morin left in October before the investment, Witty said.
Company officials said Morin’s departure wasn’t necessarily an ouster.
“I wouldn’t characterize it one way or another,” Witty said. “He decided to leave.”
Morin took the top spot at IndX last March as founder Michael Gonzalez stepped down to head the business development division.
Morin had hoped to take the company public as he had done with Wonderware nearly seven years earlier.
Early last year, Morin said he relished the idea of again working with a company in its formative stages.
“When you’re a board member, you come in once a month to pontificate,” Morin said at the time. “You get the sugar-coated version. Not when you’re CEO. When you’re CEO, you get into the gritty parts.”
Morin’s exit ended a relatively long stint at IndX. He joined as a board member in 1999,to the enthusiasm of founder Gonzalez.
“It is a pleasure to welcome Dennis to our board,” Gonzalez said. “We are quite fortunate to have a visionary of his caliber on our team. His insight and experience will strengthen the solid foundation we have put in place.”
Morin also served on the boards of several other companies, including wedding referral service 1-800-WEDDING of Anaheim Hills, which closed down a month before Morin’s departure from IndX because it had run out of cash.
IndX is in some kind of talks with a third party that could result in “good news” for the company, according to Witty, who declined to offer specifics.
As for Morin?
“He’s back to doing whatever he was doing before joining IndX,” Witty said.
An avid boater, Morin had spent months at a time sailing off the East Coast, from where his boat was docked in Charleston, S.C. Morin had planned to sail through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then back to Southern California.
After leaving Wonderware in 1995, Morin also minded the construction of his obscure $5 million Laguna Beach home,built into the rock off Pacific Coast Highway and known as the “Rock House.”
