Ed Hammersla joins Utilidata as CEO

Utilidata, Inc. of Providence, RI announced on February 21 that Ed Hammersla, a software and cyber security executive with over 40 years of experience, has joined the company as chief executive officer. Scott DePasquale, who served as chairman and chief executive officer since 2012, is taking on a new national security project in the Washington D.C. area, but will remain Utilidata’s chairman of the board.

“This is a period of transformation for the utility industry – business models are evolving as utilities seek to integrate distributed energy resources, and many more connected devices to the power delivery system,” said DePasquale. “Security must be an integral part of how we improve and automate the power grid to cope with 21^st century realities. Ed brings vast experience in scaling technology and cybersecurity solutions to the Utilidata team, and his deep operating experience bringing commercial products to market at Raytheon will surely help us maximize our recent partnership with them.”

Hammersla was most recently president of Forcepoint Federal, LLC and chief strategy officer of Forcepoint, a Raytheon joint venture focused on marketing cybersecurity products to government and commercial organizations. Prior to Forcepoint, he led Raytheon Cyber Products. Hammersla also played a leading role in the development a trusted version of the Linux operating system, now known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which brought a new level of security and low cost computing to the market. He began his career at IBM and has held leadership positions with Sterling Software, Informix Federal, NEC, and Trusted Computer Solutions. He has also worked in the venture capital community as CEO of multiple startups and served as an investor and advisor for other companies, and serves on the External Advisory Board for the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute.

“The team at Utilidata has found a way to use a single technology to deliver two results: cost savings and cybersecurity,” said Hammersla. “The same information that’s being used to save energy and enable utilities to operate more efficiently is also providing the visibility and contextual data necessary to secure the grid. With a broad portfolio of patents and proven expertise at the pinnacle of the operational technology/information technology (OT/IT) intersection of our industry, Utilidata is simply the best growth opportunity I’ve seen in decades.”

Source: Utilidata