St. Anthony: Heim to succeed HelpSystems CEO Dryer

In January, Chris Heim, the veteran software executive, will succeed longtime CEO Janet Dryer at Eden Prairie-based HelpSystems.

Dryer, 53, joined HelpSystems as a sales representative in 1985, fresh out of the College of St. Benedict. She was the third employee hired.

During 16 years under Dryer, the diversified software developer grew from $20 million to $110 million in revenue, and tripled the number of employees to nearly 300.

Dryer, who will remain chairwoman of the board and a minority shareholder, credited the workers with her success. She told the board last year that it was time for her to do something else.

"I loved this company and growing it to the size it is today," Dryer said. "It's been great. I'm passing it to somebody who can take it to $300 million. I've known Chris for 20 years. I had to be comfortable with someone to whom I could say, 'Take my baby.' "

Heim, 50, a director since 2012, said his mandate from Dryer and the other board members is: "Don't screw this up. Janet has built a legacy of growth — organic and acquisition. The culture here is important. There are 30-year people here. The company treats them well. This is not a turnaround story. It's a keep-the-train-going story."

Heim joined HighJump Software as a programming intern while still at the University of St. Thomas in 1985. He was CEO when it sold to 3M for $90 million in 2003. He left 3M, which subsequently sold HighJump, in 2006 and bought Amcom Software with longtime associate Dan Mayleben, backed by private equity partners. They grew Amcom to nearly 300 employees and revenue of about $50 million, and sold the profitable company for $163 million in 2011 to publicly traded USA Mobility.

Mayleben is joining HelpSystems as chief financial officer. Current CFO Mark Ties will become chief operating officer. HelpSystems is majority-owned by Summit Partners of Boston.

HENKEL Paid cash for Bergquist CO.

German industrial conglomerate Henkel AG & Co. paid $570 million cash this fall to buy family-owned Bergquist Co., according to Henkel's third-quarter financial statements.

That makes it one of the biggest transactions, public or private, this year in Minnesota.

The Chanhassen-based maker of insulating materials for electronics products employs about 1,000 people and had sales last year of about $170 million.

The company was founded in 1964 by Carl Bergquist, 79. He has a reputation as a successful entrepreneur and good employer.

Bergquist Co. operates a 130,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and research laboratory in Chanhassen. It also runs factories in Cannon Falls and Bigfork, Minn.; Brandon, S.D.; and Prescott, Wis., in addition to a plant in China and sales offices in Asia and Europe.

Carl Bergquist was a manufacturer's representative about 45 years ago. He started a parts distribution business. A silicone company asked Bergquist to develop a material to replace mica and grease behind power transistors. Bergquist developed what is now known as "Sil-Pad" thermal interface material, and started a manufacturing operation. That led to other products and a three-division company.

The acquisition manifests Henkel's strategy to invest in leading global technologies, Jan-Dirk Auris, Henkel's executive vice president of adhesive technologies, said when the deal was announced in September.

Doran Takes Over Management of Muir Properties

Kelly Doran, who was president of Robert Muir Co. from 1992 to 2005 when he left to form Doran Companies, will take over daily management of the Robert Muir shopping center properties. The family of Robert Muir, 88, asked Doran to take over Woodbury Village and Tamarack Village in Woodbury, Rivertown Village in St. Cloud and other properties.

Doran, 57, and Muir developed millions of square feet of shopping centers in several states.

"Robert is a very smart guy with a lot of grace," Doran recalled. "And he helped me smooth over some of my rough edges. I learned a lot from him."

Doran left Muir to do his own thing and became one of the busiest developers and builders in Minnesota.

He pivoted to multifamily housing during the Great Recession, expanding his development-construction company. Doran manages 3 million square feet of commercial and residential space.

"Dumb luck and hard work," Doran said of his success. "We were in the right place at the right time in a couple places. We were small and nimble. We weren't sitting there with projects we couldn't get leased going into the recession. We didn't have to downsize much. We continued to get financing."

Doran Development this month proposed a 30-story residential building and a six-story Graves Hotel on the site of the long-demolished Nicollet Hotel in the Gateway District downtown.

Doran said revenue from construction, development, rent and property management has grown from less than $40 million in 2009 to more than $200 million this year.

That's a lot of cranes and construction workers.

EXB Solutions had Critical Role in NASA's Inaugural Orion Flight

CEO Chris Schwartzbauer of EXB Solutions reports that the software-engineering company played a key role through software development and mission-critical testing services for this month's inaugural test flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft.

"Our talented software engineers develop and test systems that must operate precisely and, once again, they have risen to the extreme challenges posed," he said.

Schwartzbauer, 48, an engineer and U.S. Military Academy graduate, was hired in 2012 and led EXB's acquisition of Sysdyne Corp. in 2013.

The locally owned, 100-employee company is heading toward revenue of $10 million. It focuses mostly in the aerospace, defense, medical and power industries, Schwartzbauer said.

Its NASA work includes ensuring the software controlling and communicating with certain computer systems used to fly the spacecraft functions properly.

"We still have a large percentage of our business in aerospace," Schwartzbauer said. "We want to grow that and expand into med tech. We're known for systems engineering and rigorous testing. We'll take the lessons we've learned and apply it to software. We plan to grow more than 20 percent a year."

Before joining privately held, Hopkins-based EXB, Schwartzbauer spent more than 20 years at Secure Computing, Safenet and Shavlik Technologies.

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • neal.st.anthony@startribune.com