History (1999): CEO Tango

We’ve never seen so many executives canned in such a short time.

Iomega: Glore resigns
The departure of Jodie Glore, president and CEO, does not come as much of a surprise. He did not manage to steer his company back on course, and his long-term vision for the company was not terribly clear. Moreover, it would seem that officially, at least, he himself wanted to leave. He declared that he had made the decision for personal reasons, and that he is not currently seeking another position. “I expect to take my first vacation in 3 years and spend time with my family.” Thus, it’s sayonara to Glore, who remained at the head of Iomega for 10 months. The company’s chairman since 1980, David J. Dunn, will act as CEO in the meantime, while, for the 8th time, he seeks a replacement.

WD: Haggerty to retire
For some time now, the company has been fighting off a cold, only to end up with a full-fledged case of flu. Chuck Haggerty, 57, has just announced his intention to retire as president, CEO and COB by June 2000. He has already eased himself out with the appointment of 2 co-COOs, Matthew E. Massengill, 38, WW operations and geographies, and Russell R. Stern, 43, who leads WD’s lines of business and R&D, and who will share responsibility for the day-today operations of the company. Originally hailing from IBM, Haggerty came to WD 7 years ago, where he accomplished some remarkable feats, focusing with great success on desktop HDDs alone. Diversification into high end SCSI units, however, was not as convincing. Worse yet, the company recently allowed itself to fall too far behind in IDE unit technology. To repair things, Haggerty turned to IBM, although for the moment, there is no indication that this choice will pan out. Once again, there are rumors that WD will be acquired by IBM or Seagate.

Tecmar; Wassman replaced by Daiutolo
It was sluggish sales rather than product quality that forced Ernest Wassman, to resign as president, CEO and director. He has been replaced by the company’s COO, Joe Daiutolo. Reductions in the workforce are also in the works.

Komag: Tan takes over for Johnson
Co-founders Dr. Tu Chen, COB, and Stephen C. Johnson, president and CEO, have “retired”. Thian Hoo (T.H.), better known in the company as “Tan,” has been named the new CEO. He has been with the disk producer for ten years, most recently as VP WW. If, after sacking the coach, the team record was still lackluster, the owners would turn to the lineup. There, too, in a very short period of time, the storage industry has seen its numbers slashed.

Veritas: Cunningham quits
Terry Cunningham seems to have been the victim of Veritas Software’s acquisition of Seagate Software Network and Storage Management Group, where he had been president and CEO, more than anything else. Subsequently named president and COO of Veritas, he has just left the company in order, officially, to pursue other interests. As a result, Mark Leslie recovers all 3 of the titles he held prior to the Seagate transaction: president, CEO and COB of Veritas. Cunningham has also resigned from the board, leaving behind only 2 Seagate Technology representatives, CEO Steve Luczo, along with Greg Kerfoot, currently CSO at Seagate Software (which regroups what’s left of Seagate’s own software activities) and R&D organizations into only one organization. Another 500 fewer people. Up to now, all this was the work of CEO Stephen C. Johnson. His replacement, T.H. Tan, has wasted no time keeping the ball rolling, with his decision that the company’s Malaysian factories, which employ 2,750 people and which now account for 60% of production, will take on 100% by the end of the year. This means that Komag’s US workforce will drop from 1,050 to 570, or a total loss of 480, 250 of which have already left. All that remain now are 350 people in San Jose, plus 220 in Santa Rosa, CA, where there is an automated substrate manufacturing facility.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 140 on September 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.