Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Northern Power taps Codon exec Danner as new CEO

By Mass High Tech staff

Wind energy company Northern Power Systems Inc. has brought on board biotech executive John P. Danner as president and chief executive officer of the Barre, Vt.-based company.

Danner was previously president and CEO of Codon Devices Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company based in Cambridge that makes synthetic proteins using its BioLogic platform. Before he ran Codon, Danner held a number of executive positions at PerkinElmer Inc. (NYSE:PKI), including vice president and general manager of a group of global life science businesses.

At McKinsey & Co., Danner was a management consultant, serving in both the United States and Europe, with a focus on strategy development, operational excellence and organizational development. Earlier in his career, he served as a nuclear engineer and officer on a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.

In September, Northern Power completed a $37 million round of funding through its parent Wind Power Holdings Inc. to support the growth and development of Northern Power’s wind turbine business.

The Series A round was led by Boston-based RockPort Capital Partners and New York’s Allen & Co. LLC, and it included additional investors. The two new investors joined Century America LLC, Baker Investments LLC and others that participated in Wind Power Holding’s acquisition of Norther Power’s assets from Distributed Energy Systems in August. To date, the group has raised $56 million.

Northern Power’s flagship product, the Northwind 100, was originally designed in conjunction with NASA, and was aimed at providing reliable wind power in remote locations, such as the Indian Ocean and the South Pole. With the rise in interest in wind power in more populated areas, Northern Power has applied the turbine technology to distributed energy projects in places like farms, school campuses and private business facilities.