Konezny to Depart Trimble

This story appears in the Dec. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

Ron Konezny, head of Trimble Navigation’s global transportation and logistics division, said he is leaving to become CEO of Digi International Inc.

Konezny co-founded the onboard-computing firm PeopleNet in 1994. After Trimble’s purchase of PeopleNet in 2011, he continued Trimble’s dramatic push into the trucking-technology space.

Konezny’s final day at Trimble will be Dec. 16, and he is set to become Digi’s CEO the next day, succeeding Joseph Dunsmore, who is retiring.

Konezny, 46, described his departure from Trimble as a deeply personal decision.

“It was an agonizing process to consider leaving Trimble and PeopleNet,” he said. “Having founded PeopleNet 20 years ago, it’s a part of my identity. It’s been really emotional.”

Konezny said his work at Trimble eventually would have required him to move to the firm’s operational headquarters in Denver, but he wanted to remain in Minnesota.

He expanded Trimble’s truck-technology presence by orchestrating a series of high-profile acquisitions that built the division into a 1,500-employee operation managing more than 2 million assets.

The largest of those purchases were major transportation software providers TMW Systems and ALK Technologies, as well as GeoTrac, a technology supplier for the energy sector, and others.

Jim Veneziano has assumed Konezny’s role and responsibilities at Trimble, the company said.

Veneziano is vice president of Trimble’s mobile solutions segment, which includes the transportation and logistics division. He has been with Trimble since 1990 and has held a variety of executive-level management roles.

Veneziano said Konezny “was instrumental in building the PeopleNet and Trimble organizations as leaders in fleet-mobility technology for the land-transportation industry.”

Konezny said he doesn’t expect his departure to bring any change in direction for Trimble’s transportation and logistics division.

“The prospects for our franchises have never been brighter,” he said. “I’m kind of sad to not be able to see that through, but our division is doing really well. We’re growing and we’re becoming a bigger part of Trimble.”

Konezny said the division’s strategy is to become a “complete provider” to its customers, offering a wide variety of technologies from the same source.

“We want to continue to expand the number of things we can provide to our customers, while at the same time not forcing them to use only our solutions,” he said.

He also said Trimble will apply even more resources to integrating its technologies, including data integration between TMW and PeopleNet.

Over time, Trimble will offer its customers a single support interface for all of its trucking technology companies, rather than making customers contact each company separately, Konezny said.

The division will continue to expand, not only through acquisition but also organically, he said, citing PeopleNet’s plans to launch its own video-based safety system next year.

Trimble said operating income at its mobile-solutions segment jumped to $64 million in 2013, compared with $32.5 million in 2012 and $4.5 million in 2011. The unit’s revenue climbed to $465 million last year, up from $348 million in 2012 and $219 million in 2011.

Digi, Konezny’s new company, is a supplier of communications equipment to a variety of industries, including transportation. The company is based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, which is also the home of PeopleNet’s headquarters.

Digi historically has been a hardware provider, but Konezny said his task will be to transform it into a company that actively manages and monitors devices, rather than just selling them.

In the past, Digi has supplied Wi-Fi chips used in some PeopleNet displays but is not currently a significant supplier to the company, he said.

Digi credited Konezny with achieving an “outstanding track record of consistent, profitable revenue growth” at Trimble’s transportation and logistics division.

Konezny said that when PeopleNet was first incorporated in 1994, it began as a “night and weekend” job for the company’s founders.

It kicked off operations in 1996 and brought its new cellular-based technology to market — at the time competing primarily against satellite-based systems such as Qualcomm’s Omnitracs units, he said.

Konezny, who was originally PeopleNet’s chief technology officer, said his initial contribution to the company was combining cellular technology with the Internet and GPS.

He later served as PeopleNet’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer from 2001 to 2006 and became CEO in 2007.

Konezny is also a board member for I.D. Systems, provider of the VeriWise brand of trailer- and container- tracking technology.