Management

In May 2008 Dennis Capovilla was promoted from President & COO to CEO in recognition of his success in making the difficult decisions to restructure the organization, refocus the product strategy on energy-related core competencies, and realign Southwall for profitable growth. He joined Southwall in July 2003 with an initiative to turnaround declining revenues by rebuilding the sales organization and focusing on customer relationships along with improving visibility and predictability. His strong leadership and successful implementation of strategic planning led to the necessary revenue growth for Southwall to pursue new market opportunities in 2005.

Dennis served as Vice President of Enterprise Sales for Palm, Inc., a global provider of handheld computing devices and operating systems, where he rebuilt Palm’s $80M enterprise sales organization. Prior to joining Palm, he held various positions with Fatbrain, LLC, from Vice President Sales and Business Development to COO where he played a critical role in taking the company public, and finally to President and Chief Executive Officer where he successfully negotiated the sale of FatBrain to Barnes & Noble. Dennis also held various sales and worldwide marketing positions with Apple Computer and Xerox. He has a BS in Marketing from Santa Clara University.

Bruce Lang joined Southwall in June 2005 to energize the company’s new product development and marketing efforts. His strategic leadership and seventeen years experience in marketing advanced technology products has been instrumental in revitalizing the company’s positioning as an energy technology leader with renewed focus on delivering energy-saving films and glass products to the company's core markets.

Mr. Lang is the President of Southwall Insulating Glass, LLC, a joint venture company established to manufacture the industry's most energy-efficient insulating glass incorporating Southwall's Heat Mirror(R) film technology. The new company is focused on automating the production of high performance Heat Mirror insulating glass to make it both affordable and accessible for broad market adoption. 

Mr. Lang most recently served as Director of Product Marketing for Glimmerglass Networks, a global provider of fiber-optic switching systems. Prior to joining Glimmerglass, Mr. Lang held Product Marketing positions with Altera Corporation, helping to grow sales from $70 million to $700 million during his eight years with the company. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a MBA from Santa Clara University.

Mike Vargas came to Southwall in 2004 from Agilent where he served as a Senior Business HR Manager for two organizations: I/O Solutions Division and the Worldwide Controllership function for the $2B Semiconductor Products Group.Prior to his 5 years with Agilent, he spent approximately 15 years at Hewlett Packard in various HR Business and recruiting management roles in the semiconductor and Personal Computer businesses. At Agilent, his business skills were used to design and implement the organizational structure and to attract and retain the world class talent necessary to build the IOSD division from start up to $150 million business in 2004. Mike navigated both organizations through significant market swings, which enabled the I/O Solutions Division to leap-frog the competition with cutting edge technology.

As Human Resources Director at Southwall, Mike brings the focus back to the workforce, establishing strategic plans and objectives that foster teamwork, participation and high productivity while ensuring that HR programs are aligned with business objectives and core values. Mike received a BA Behavioral Sciences from San Jose State University.

Mallorie Burak joined Southwall in September, 2007 as Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller.   Ms. Burak came to Southwall from Oracle Corporation, a software company, where she was the Finance Director for the Communications Global Business Unit, a business unit created as a result of Oracle’s acquisition of Portal Software, where Ms. Burak served as Director of Revenue (2005-2007). 

Prior to Portal, Ms. Burak was the US Corporate Controller at Ilog, Inc., a software company (2004 – 2005).  From 2002 to 2004, Ms. Burak was with Iverson Financial Systems, Inc., a financial reference data management company, as Director of Finance.  Prior, Ms. Burak held various Financial Management positions with TrueSan Networks, Zilog, Inc. and Hewlett Packard Company.  Ms. Burak earned her Masters in Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from San Jose State University.

Craig Wesley joined Southwall in December 2004 to sharpen focus on the company’s architectural and window film businesses.  His fresh perspective has resulted in new growth opportunities for the company’s energy efficiency solutions in rapidly expanding markets worldwide.

Mr. Wesley brings over 20 years of diverse business strengths from entrepreneurial, early stage, and Fortune 100 company experiences.  Prior to Southwall, he was responsible for Global Enterprise Sales at e-learning leader Digitalthink, and was Vice President of Sales for New Vine Logistics, a winery & ecommerce technology company.  He also founded MicroBrew Express, an innovative customer-direct subscription business that was acquired by beverage retailer, Beverages and More!.  Mr. Wesley began his career in various sales and management roles at Xerox.  He has a BA in Communication from Michigan State University.

Lee brings more than 20 years of product development experience to Southwall, in which he has developed and scaled into volume production a broad range of technology products and processes resulting in over $1B in revenue. His broad technical knowledge and development experience spans project management, project/product transfer, process development, SPC & data analysis, metrology, facilities, equipment, and EH&S.  

Prior to joining Southwall, Lee was Director of Engineering and Manufacturing at a variety of technology based companies including Read-Rite Corporation, Landec Corporation, and Gemfire Corporation.  Lee also worked at Energy Conversion Devices and Schott Solar in early development of a-Si solar cells.  He holds B.S. degrees in Materials Science & Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.