Start-up insecticide producer Vestaron hires new CEO

Vestaron Corp., the Kalamazoo-based company working to develop new insecticides from substances found in spider venom, says it is hiring veteran agricultural industry executive Steven Hartmeier to be its new president and chief executive officer.

Hartmeier has been working as CEO and director of NGB Markets, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based agricultural technology company that provides real-time data to agricultural producers. He has more than 30 years of experience with large companies in the industry as well as small start-up companies.

"Steve's experience with taking start-up companies through the product commercialization process is just what Vestaron needs at this stage of its development," Vestaron Chairman John Sorenson said in a press release.

Hartmeier's experience with biorational pest control products (those that are comparatively non-toxic and have few ecological side-effects) will be critical as Vestaron launches its pest-control products, called CleanTech, Sorenson said.

Hartmeier fills posts vacated in April after John McIntyre left the company. Sorenson has filled the posts on an interim basis.

He said Hartmeier's track record "in successfully taking small companies and turning them into large ones is exceptional."

Hartmeier is a former president of Suterra LLC, a leading biorational agricultural industry, and held senior managerial and sales positions at Consep Inc., Pacoast Inc. and Monsanto.Hartmeier is a graduate, with a bachelor's degree in plant science, from the University of California at Davis.

Located in the Southwest Michigan Innovations Center on Western Michigan University's Parkvew campus, Vestaron was Venomix Inc. in 2005. It was a startup at the University of Connecticut Research and Development Corp. before splitting away to develop products that can be commercialized. Because the company's insecticides are to be based on natural sources, they are expected to be more environmentally friendly than other products.

"The future opportunity with Vestaron' s technology is phenomenal," Hartmeier said. "The novel mode of action combined with its Green Product profile makes this technology a potential game changer in modern agriculture."