New CEO at Winland Electronics

Winland Electronics Inc. has named David Gagne its new CEO and director. Gagne joined the company earlier this year as an advisor to the board, hired to lead an outside project team to analyze and evaluate the company’s products, competitors, sales channels and business strategy.

“David brings over 20 years of experience in the mobile communications and software industry, most recently as the chief operating officer of Xata Corporation, now XRS Corp.,” said Thomas Goodmanson, chairman of the board of directors at Winland. “Having led the project team that evaluated our business over the past four months, David joins our company with a deep understanding of our products, markets and opportunity. I am tremendously excited about the perspective and expertise David brings to our company as our new CEO and director.”

Gagne served as chief operating officer at Xata, an Eden Prairie, Minn., provider of software and mobile solutions. Gagne joined the Xata in 2007 as executive vice president in charge of field operations. In his various roles he was responsible for sales, marketing, services, distribution, and customer support. Prior to joining Xata, Gagne was vice president in charge of strategic development at St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson Software, at the time the state’s largest software company. He also served as vice president of the Healthcare business unit with revenues over $100 million. Gagne is a graduate of the Boston University School of Management.

“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to lead Winland Electronics at this promising point in its history,” Gagne said. “We believe there is a compelling market opportunity in environmental monitoring that allows us to bring together our expertise in software, hardware and services, leveraging our EA800-ip technology and the business relationships we’ve already established. The demand for cloud-based services and mobile solutions of this nature is growing and the market is still in its early stages. Winland has an opportunity to be at the forefront of this exciting new technology.”

Based in Mankato, Minn., Winland Electronics provides critical condition monitoring devices. The company’s products are designed in-house to monitor critical conditions in a range of industries including medical.