GreenVolts Gets a New CEO

GreenVolts has hired David Gudmundson as CEO, the company said.

The company, which also has moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Fremont across the bay, had been helmed by chief financial officer Gary Beasley ever since founder Bob Cart left the post this past spring to become chairman. 

Back in spring, the company also said it would change its focus from project development to equipment engineering. GreenVolts' technology makes use of mirrors to concentrate the sunlight onto solar cells for electricity generation. The system is mounted on a dual-axis tracker called CarouSol.   

Beasley isn't staying at GreenVolts. He's leaving to "pursue a career in private equity," the company said in a press release.

So who is Gudmundson? He came from the networking equipment business. He joined JDS Uniphase (NSDQ: JDSU) in 2003 as vice president of business development. His role expanded to include corporate marketing before he became an executive vice president and the president of the optical communications product group, leading a 3,000-person team, GreenVolts said.

Gudmundson didn't stay in the role of president before he joined GreenVolts, however. In October 2008, JDS Uniphase announced Gudmundson would step aside from that role to become vice president and senior advisor for optical technologies.

The announcement came four days after JDS Uniphase's CEO Kevin Kennedy resigned; he was to continue to be a member of the board and its vice chairman.

Before JDS Uniphase, Gudmundson worked for Cisco Systems. He was a group vice president and general manager, and played a key role in the company's entry into the router, broadband and security server markets, GreenVolts said.

Before Cisco, he was an engineer at ArgoSystems, which is now a subsidiary of Boeing, as well as at ESL Inc., which is part of Northrop Grumman.

Founded in 2005, GreenVolts has raised nearly $45 million in equity.

GreenVolts won recognition for signing a deal to sell electricity to the Pacific Gas and Electric from a 2-megawatt project in northern California. The company has suffered setbacks in completing that project.

In an interview with Greentech Media in March this year, Cart said the company wanted to complete generation-two technology before finishing the project. The engineers were working on changing the designs of several parts, including the mirrors and the receiver, which is made up of a solar cell, a lens and a device to dissipate heat.