West Wireless Health Institute Names First CEO, Leap Wireless Trims Operations, MaxLinear Sets Price Range for IPO, & More San Diego BizTech News

Bruce V. Bigelow3/15/10Follow @bvbigelow

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about two-thirds of Americans (68 percent) have never heard the term “smart grid” and 63 percent don’t know what a smart meter is.

—EcoDog founding CEO Ron Pitt told me the company’s energy monitoring device has been installed in the new “eco-savvy” homes at Rockrose at the Foothills, a planned development near Carlsbad, CA.

—Helix Wind (NASDAQ OTC Bulletin Board: HLXW), the San Diego cleantech that makes wind turbines, named Scott Weinbrandt as CEO, replacing co-founder Ian Gardner. Gardner also left the company’s board.

—San Diego’s West Wireless Health Institute named former Johnson & Johnson executive Don Casey as CEO. It’s been a year since the Gary and Mary West Foundation created the nonprofit research institute with a $45 million donation.

—Carlsbad, CA-based wireless chip design company MaxLinear could raise as much as $81 million in its IPO in the next couple of weeks, if underwriters exercise all their options. The company will offer 5.43 million shares at between $11 and $13 a share.

—San Diego-based Memjet, which is developing new inkjet printer technology, named former General Atomics CFO Mark Legg as its chief financial officer.

—Fallbrook Technologies, the San Diego company commercializing more-efficient transmission, said it will develop a new design for an automotive air conditioner compressor with Hodyon of Austin, TX. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call (619) 669-8788 Follow @bvbigelow