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TMCNet: Virent ex-CEO Apfelbach to lead ZBB Energy [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

[January 08, 2010]

Virent ex-CEO Apfelbach to lead ZBB Energy [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 8--ZBB Energy Corp., whose founder resigned late last year after an inquiry by the company's audit committee, has named Eric C. Apfelbach its new president and chief executive.

Apfelbach, who also joins the ZBB board, brings a record of involvement in the start-ups of other technology companies, including Madison's Virent Energy Systems Inc., a catalytic biofuels firm.

Apfelbach said he is excited by the challenge of "going into a new market with technology that can enable new growth stories. The markets for distributed energy generation are now coming to a serious growth phase.

"You can see by the amount of interest going up in the investment community in (energy) storage," he added. "It's an absolutely critical issue for distributed generation." Paul Koeppe, a ZBB director who led the search committee and served as the company's interim chief executive until Apfelbach's appointment, said Apfelbach's experience running similar size companies and technology knowledge were "a perfect fit for us." "He'll be able to provide the leadership we need to grow this company as we move into the future," he said.

Although Apfelbach is best known for his fund-raising work to attract investors to technology start-ups, Koeppe said Apfelbach also has manufacturing experience that will be important as the company scales up production of its energy storage systems.

Before leading Virent, Apfelbach co-founded Alfalight Inc. and, as president and CEO, helped the high-power diode laser company grow from zero to 85 employees in two years, and led the firm through multiple rounds of financing. He also has been an executive at Planar Systems Inc., and began his career as an engineer at Applied Materials, one of the world's largest semiconductor equipment companies.

He takes over ZBB at a time when the Menomonee Falls company has been drawing notice with its fuel-cell energy storage systems, but also has wrestled with corporate governance challenges.

Robert Parry, ZBB's former president and CEO, left the company in November following an internal investigation that revealed ZBB should have been paying withholding taxes to him, because he was working as an employee even though he had a longstanding arrangement to work as an independent contractor.

ZBB's compensation committee awarded Apfelbach two inducement option grants to purchase a total of 500,000 shares of the company's stock. ZBB shares closed Thursday at $1.33, up 8 cents, or 6.4%.

To see more of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.jsonline.com.

Copyright (c) 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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