Gary Hermansen, former senior vice president and general manager of Glenayre Technologies Inc.’s consumer products group, left the company to become chief executive officer of start-up firm Brightmail Inc.
Hermansen served as vice president of sales and marketing for Wireless Access Inc. and played a pivotal role in leading the start-up pager manufacturer to the $100 million acquisition by Glenayre in 1997, after which it became Glenayre’s Wireless Access Group. Following a restructuring effort at Glenayre, the Wireless Access Group became Glenayre’s consumer products division.
With Glenayre’s financial backing, the Wireless Access Group under Hermansen introduced several FLEX and ReFLEX paging products, including the first two-way ReFLEX 25 pager. Only Glenayre and Motorola Inc. make two-way paging products.
San Francisco-based Brightmail is creating a solution to eliminate unsolicited bulk e-mail, or spam.
“Gary’s experience, credentials and track record are ideally suited to take Brightmail to the next level as a company,” said Brightmail’s Sunil Paul, co-founder and chairman. “His history of working with service providers selling complicated messaging technology and strong record of execution and successful partnerships with large companies will lead Brightmail even more quickly down the path of success.”
