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Vestaron Corporation Hires New President and CEO

KALAMAZOO -- Vestaron Corp., a venture-backed agricultural biotechnology firm, Wednesday  announced the hiring of Steven Hartmeier as its new president and CEO. Hartmeier brings 30 years of agricultural experience with both large companies and small start-up companies to Vestaron.

"Steve's experience with taking start-up companies through the product commercialization process is just what Vestaron needs at this stage of its development," said John Sorenson, Vestaron's chairman. "In particular, his experience with biorational pest control products will be critical as we launch our CleanTech pest control products.  His track record in successfully taking small companies and turning them into large ones is exceptional."

Prior to joining Vestaron, Hartmeier was CEO and director of NGB Markets, an agricultural technology company providing real time data to agricultural producers.

Prior to NGB, Hartmeier was President of Suterra LLC, one of the largest and fastest growing biorational pest control providers in the world. Suterra was formed with the sale of the Consep business to Roll International. Key was the successful financing and sale of Consep out of Verdant Brands (Consep's parent) in 2001.

Hartmeier served as vice president, commercial products and a corporate officer, for Verdant Brands Inc. and president of Consep.

Hartmeier began his career in various sales and marketing positions with Monsanto Co.

Hartmeier has a bachelor's degree in plant science with an emphasis in vegetable crops  from the University of California, Davis.

"The future opportunity with Vestaron' s technology is phenomenal," Hartmeier said.  "The novel mode of action combined with its green product profile makes this technology a potential game changer in modern agriculture."

Vestaron is developing a new generation of insecticides (http://www.vestaron.com/receptors-and-insecticidal-activity.html) using natural peptides (http://www.vestaron.com/about-technology.html) from spiders. Products under development have a unique mode of action, are highly effective against insects and related pests and are harmless to non-target species, including humans. Target markets include agriculture, animal health and specialty non-crop uses such as household insects.

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