Productivity Enhancement Products Inc., a Laguna Hills-based engineering service company, named Richard Dadamo of Aliso Viejo CEO. He replaces Dan Beadle, PEP’s founder, who left the company when a spinoff company, BeadleNet, was acquired by Seattle-based WatchGuard Technologies.
“Part of the deal when WatchGuard got BeadleNet was Beadle went with it,” said Dadamo. “It was Dan’s vision, so it was appropriate for him to go with it.”
Dadamo said PEP needs to be built back up.
“The engineering department is one of the areas we need to rebuild,” said Dadamo. “The BeadleNet deal took six of our top engineers with it.”
PEP has 30 employees.
A 40-year management veteran, Dadamo has made a career out of building companies. In 1998, he was appointed interim CEO of Garden Grove-based Dense-Pac Microsystems Inc., which had suffered a $4 million loss in revenue the previous year.
Dadamo relinquished that CEO position in 1999, though he is still Dense-Pac’s chairman. The company posted $7.5 million in revenue for the quarter ended November 30, a 121% increase from the prior year.
Dadamo is also on the board of M-Flex in Anaheim and Anna Technologies in Rancho Bernardo. Dadamo admitted he’s more of a hands-on operator and mentor than a passive director.
“I’m more interested in how far a company moves forward than how far I move in the company,” he said.
Dadamo is a graduate of the executive management program at the University of Southern California, and has a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University and a master’s degree from the Drexel Institute of Technology. He is the author of two books on management.
Dadamo and his wife, Lorraine, have been Orange County residents for more than 30 years. They have three children: Rick, 42; Patty, 37, and Susan, 36.
