Thursday, February 3, 2011

Boston-Power names industry vet Schmid as CEO

By Kyle Alspach

Article updated as of 3:25 p.m., Feb. 3, 2011.

Advanced battery maker Boston-Power Inc. has named a power industry veteran as CEO to replace the company’s founder, Christina Lampe-Onnerud.

The Westborough-based company, which has received $191.4 million in venture capital, said Thursday it has named Keith Schmid as its new chief executive. He comes to the company from Virginia-based Power Distribution Inc., a provider of electricity distribution equipment and services, where he was president and CEO.

Lampe-Onnerud, a native of Sweden who founded Boston-Power in 2005, is now serving as executive chairman of the company. She will continue full time at Boston-Power and will remain focused on guiding the company’s vision and strategy, she said Thursday.

“I think it’s actually an opportunity to do what made me start the company in the first place, to drive global deployment of energy storage and to be an innovator in that space,” Lampe-Onnerud said in an interview.

Boston-Power is a producer of lithium ion batteries for computers, electric vehicles and other applications. The company’s batteries are currently being used in some Hewlett-Packard laptops, while ASUS is using Boston-Power batteries as the standard battery packs in its ASUS B Series line of notebook PCs.

In transportation, Boston-Power has deals to supply batteries to several electric vehicle projects, including the 9-3 ePower, Saab’s planned all-electric vehicle, according to the company. Lampe-Onnerud said the Saab vehicle is expected to be commercially available in early 2012.

Bandel Carano, managing partner at company investor Oak Investment Partners, said in a statement that Schmid possesses “prowess” in leading growing companies in competitive markets. The appointment “positions Boston-Power well to extend its reach into an even larger community of customers and partners,” Carano said.

Prior to Power Distribution, Schmid held executive-level positions at Exide Industrial Energy, GNB Technologies, Philips Consumer Communications and AT&T/Lucent Power Systems, Boston-Power said.

Boston-Power operates a battery factory in Taiwan, and Lampe-Onnerud said the company is also planning to manufacture in Sweden and Germany, along with another region that she declined to disclose. She previously said the company has been in talks with the Chinese government about building a factory in China.

Boston-Power has been looking to expand outside the U.S. since being denied $100 million in federal stimulus funding for a planned factory in Auburn. The factory would have employed 600 people. Boston-Power has 150 employees in Westborough and 400 employees in Taiwan and China, Lampe-Onnerud said.