Agilent Technologies Inc. said Shiela Robertson will succeed John Eaton as vice president for corporate development. Eaton will retire on April 30 after 23 years with Agilent and Hewlett-Packard Co. Succeeding Robertson as operational CFO of the electronic measurement group is Robert Cantrell, who was most recently group controller for Agilent's global infrastructure organization. Robertson began her career as a financial analyst with Hewlett-Packard in 1980.

David White came aboard Acacia Research Corp. as a vice president of business development in its technologies group. White was formerly vice president of Discovision Associates, a patent licensing company which is wholly-owned by Pioneer Electronics. White was with Discovision from 1989 and managed all aspects of patent licensing and patent acquisition. He was most recently president of Intellectual Property Holdings Inc., a patent brokering service company.

Intellectual property service provider IPotential LLC tapped Ira Blumberg as senior vice president of licensing. Blumberg most recently served as vice president of licensing for Rambus Inc. Before that, he worked at Intel Corp. for seven years, starting as a senior licensing attorney and after four years becoming director of licensing. Before Intel, Blumberg was an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC in Palo Alto, Calif.

Energy management systems maker GridPoint Inc. made Steve Hauser vice president of strategy, utility division. Hauser, who also serves as executive director of the GridWise Alliance, will be responsible for creating new markets and partnerships. Hauser led the formation of the GridWise Alliance in 2003 to unite companies from across the country.

Washington Group International appointed Larry Shaw as executive vice president of business development for the company's defense business unit, headquartered in Arlington, Va. Shaw will also be responsible for sales, and marketing activities in the implementation of the defense unit's strategic growth plans. He replaces Dennis Romano, who is retiring. Most recently, Shaw was president of the company's infrastructure business unit.

Scanbuy Inc., a provider of wireless commerce solutions, expanded its management team, adding Jim Edson as a senior vice president of business development. Edson will be responsible for relationship-building with mobile handset manufacturers, chipset providers and wireless carriers in his new role. Prior to this, Edson was SVP of business development at PacketVideo Corp., a provider of embedded multimedia software and applications.

—Baz Hiralal

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