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John Pollack
Telegraph-Journal

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SAINT JOHN - Health-care technology service provider AnyWare Group Inc., is looking to grow five-fold over the next couple of years.

Enlarge Photo

Robert LaLonde

To achieve this goal the company's board of directors have hired Robert Lalonde, 45, as the new chief executive officer to lead AnyWare.

After a North America wide quest by an executive search firm, AnyWare decided on Lalonde because of his proven track record in growing companies of a similar size in similar markets.

In his time at Delano Technology Corporation (Nasdaq:DTEC), from January, 1999 to fall of 2003, Lalonde was part of a team responsible for growing that company from 20 employees to about 600.

"When you can attract a guy like that into an opportunity," said David Wilson, a member of the company's board of directors, "I think that's a real testament to the opportunity that AnyWare Group has."

Under Lalonde's leadership Wilson said AnyWare has "a chance to build a real world class company."

And that's exactly what Lalonde likes to do.

"We're shooting for a very significant ramp up," Lalonde said. "I'd like to see it be another one of the great Canadian success stories like the other ones I've been involved in."

Having worked at a few large companies early in his career, Lalonde said he prefers starting with something small and helping it grow.

"I'm just drawn to the dynamics and the energy and the fast pace of a startup," he said. "It suits my personality and I like to juggle a lot of balls and move fast."

Lalonde, who has a computer science degree from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., his home town, and was pulled away from his masters of business administration two courses shy by Delano, most recently worked at as vice-president of sales for Pano Logic. At that company he was responsible for Canadian sales and operations as well as sales in the Northeast and Central U.S. also marketing a technology to the health care industry.

This is Lalonde's first CEO position, though he has managed divisions of companies with more employees and larger revenues than AnyWare.

The company's ROAM platform allows medical professionals access files remotely, so a doctor could look at an X-ray slide from his or her home office.

"We're in a tough economic time, but we've got a great product," Lalonde said.

He said AnyWare isn't faced with the same challenges as automotive companies are for example.

"When you're a very small company, in a market where there aren't limits as to what you can do capability wise and customers are largely unpenetrated, even in a down market, even in a recession you can show some pretty significant growth if you've got the right product for the right times," he said.

"Health care is our primary market and of all of the markets in technology health care is more recession-proof than any others."

With a team of about 30 employees, which Lalonde described as "hard-working" and "seasoned," he spoke confidently about AnyWare's ability to reach its goal.

"It's hard to find a strong team like that in Toronto, or Silicon-valley, that's as well rounded as this team," he said. "I was really excited about that."