TECHNOLOGY : Wonderware Corp. Loses First Executive to Formal Retirement
Peter B. Pitsker has become the first executive to officially retire from 7-year-old Wonderware Corp., an Irvine-based maker of software that gives factory workers greater control over machinery.
A start-up in 1987, Wonderware had $21 million in sales last year. The company went public last July, raising $32 million for a corporate expansion. A second offering raised about $2.5 million last month.
“My wife and I thought about taking time to enjoy ourselves, having put four kids through college,” said Pitsker, 60. “Having my health, I thought it would be a good time to retire.”
The company owes its success to software programs that make factory control equipment as easy to use as office computers. The software replaces unwieldy custom programs with graphics-oriented menus that operate under Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software, which utilizes graphics to make PCs easier to use. As Windows grew more popular, Wonderware’s sales took off.
Pitsker joined the company in 1988 to help Wonderware founder Dennis B. Morin raise venture capital for the fledgling company. He remembers when the company sold its first program that year to a Kal-Kan dog-food plant in Vernon.
Previously, Pitsker was a founder and director of Triconex Corp., a competitor for which Morin had worked as an engineer, and a longtime consultant in the process-control industry.
After DSC Ventures in Cupertino and Houston Partners in Texas invested $1.1 million in Wonderware in 1989, Pitsker became president and chief executive. He helped create the company’s domestic and international sales operations. In 1990, he handed the presidency over to founder Morin and became chairman.
Pitsker was most recently the company’s vice president. He and his wife, Polly, are moving from San Juan Capistrano to a home overlooking Lake Mead in Boulder City, Nev.
Pitsker plans to take up bicycling, jogging and boating. He will also work part time as a consultant. His first client: Wonderware.
