Retired Air Force General to Head DTI (Boston Business Journal)

Boston Business Journal - by Jackie Noblett Journal staff

After a monthlong search, the Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative has named Donald Quenneville as its new executive director.

Quenneville, a retired brigadier general with the U.S. Air Force, will be charged with building upon the nascent defense cluster cultivated by former director Alan Macdonald, who left to take a position with South Shore Hospital.

One of Quenneville's first steps will be to market the state as a hub of defense technology innovation, in hopes that it will beat out competition for a proposed cyberspace counterterrorism center.

"That is a perfect fit to this area, since cyber is largely a commercial venture," Quenneville said. "Much of what the military is, is off-the-shelf software, so to protect that, we would have to rely on the same people (who made the software)."

Jackie Noblett can be reached at jnoblett@bizjournals.com.