Jim Rock, the leader for nearly a decade of Coraopolis-based Seegrid Corp., has stepped down from his role as CEO of the company that makes autonomous mobile robots capable of transporting goods found in warehouses and factories.
Joe Pajer has been named as his successor effective immediately.
"After eight years at the helm leading Seegrid to significant success … I decided to make way for a new leader with a fresh perspective and a different set of skills to take the company to the next level of success," Rock said. "[Pajer] is actually quite a successful leader and CEO, I would say significantly more talented and successful than I am. I would consider this a pretty significant upgrade for Seegrid in terms of leadership. I'm excited that he has agreed to take over now."
Rock said his decision to step down as CEO was personal and that he has no immediate plans set for future employment. A vacation and more time with family in the interim take priority for now, he said. He also committed to staying in the region and will remain an active member of Seegrid's board and will serve in an advisory role to Pajer.
A new CEO at Seegrid comes a month after the company added several other significant markers to its timeline.
At the beginning of August, Seegrid raised $30 million in financing at the same time it took on about 23,000 square feet of new development space near its headquarters at the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania's Park West Industrial Park off of Interstate 376. It was also during this time that Seegrid laid off 90 workers across various positions within the company, a figure that equated to about a quarter of its workforce.
Rock described the leadership change as "just one more thing on the list of really fast-growing tech companies" in an effort to downplay the significance of any one of these individual recent events. He's more focused and excited about Seegrid's newest product; the Palion Lift AMR, a fully autonomous forklift that the company began rolling out earlier this year to customers.
"I really think that what's happening with the new automated lift trucks and the new product launch that we've been working on for quite some time now, that in my mind is the most exciting thing happening in Seegrid," Rock said. "Of course, a new leader is headline-worthy as are layoffs and fundraising but if you want my opinion, the truth is the company has been toiling away on the development of an incredible new product, which is literally an automated forklift, a newer product for Seegrid."
As for Pajer, he joins the company after numerous stints leading other tech firms around the country.
He most recently served as the president and CEO of Calero Software, a Rochester, New York-based provider of communications and cloud lifecycle management solutions that merged with a competitor — MDSL — in 2019. He has also served as the president and CEO of two other companies; Thinklogical, a Connecticut-based IT firm, and Vocollect, a Pittsburgh-based software maker that now operates as a division of Honeywell Safety & Productivity Solutions.
Pajer obtained both his master's in management and his bachelor's in civil engineering, engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
