3 Company Founders Retiring at Odetics

ANAHEIM — Three Odetics Corp. founders, who helped build the company into a profitable maker of high-tech video and data recorders over nearly three decades, have retired.

The company said Wednesday that it was making several executive changes that have been planned for more than a year to ensure an orderly transition.

“There’s no surprise,” said William Gibson, of the Irvine-based brokerage Cruttenden Roth Inc. “All three had said they wanted to retire. Several stayed on longer than they wanted just to make sure that the company had qualified replacements in place.”

The retiring founders are Crandall Gudmundson, president; Jerry Muench, vice president of marketing, and Gordon Schulz, vice president of mechanical engineering.

David Lewis, vice president of commercial products, also is retiring. Gudmundson and Muench will remain on the board.

Another founder, Joel Slutzky, remains as chairman and chief executive officer.

Odetics was founded in 1969 by six engineers who developed a reputation for valuing employees as much as the bottom line.

As part of the executive moves Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Greg Miner was named chief operating officer. Odetics named David Scheel a vice president and Hugo Fruehauf as president of its communications division. Scheel was a general manager of Odetics Telecommunications and Fruehauf was a vice president at Alliant Techsystems Inc.