DeLorme, a leader in mapping, GIS, and GPS technology and maker of XMap for agriculture, announces a leadership change.

Mike Heffron has been named President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 4, 2011. Heffron also will serve on the Board of Directors. He will be the first person to hold the office of CEO other than Company founder and owner David DeLorme, who will continue as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“Mike has a truly exceptional professional background and is the ideal person to lead us forward as we solidify DeLorme’s role as a game-changing provider of world-class geographic data and innovative GPS hardware,” said David DeLorme. “His extensive background as a senior executive in the government contracting space provides DeLorme with a skill set that will be critical as we look to expand our footprint in both the U.S. government and NGO markets,” added DeLorme.

Says Heffron, “I am looking forward to the opportunity to work closely with David, the board, and the whole DeLorme team. They are as good a group of professionals, dedicated to the success of the company and each other, as I have met throughout my career. The opportunity to lead and be a part of the DeLorme team is an honor and privilege for me.”

Heffron was most recently President of the EI&S Operating Group of global defense, security and aerospace giant BAE Systems. In that role, Heffron led an enterprise with $8.5 billion in revenues in 2009, maintaining both topline revenue growth and profitability even in the face of the global recession. An engineer by training, Heffron has had an exceptional career as a technologist and business leader.

As the first person other than David DeLorme himself to be both President and CEO, Heffron’s hiring comes at a watershed period in the company’s history. Since the late 2000s, a key DeLorme initiative has been licensing its in-house library of digital global geographic data; that includes the DeLorme World Base Map, the only consistently-detailed, GPS-accurate 1:250,000-scale digital map of the entire surface of the Earth. DeLorme has recently entered into data licenses with various federal and private-sector clients. Heffron is expected to continue to lead growth in this area, and to spearhead other strategic initiatives in the geographic data and GPS device market space.

Founded by David DeLorme in 1976, the company was initially best known for its unique Atlas & Gazetteer series of topographic map books for individual states. DeLorme later pioneered the mapping software business, launching the first product ever to put virtually every street in the country on one CD-ROM. Since the mid-1990s, the DeLorme Earthmate line of laptop-connected and handheld GPS receivers has introduced countless first-to-market innovations, with applications for both the professional and consumer markets.

Learn more about their XMap applications for agriculture.