Barry Batcheller

Appareo Systems is led by Chairman and CEO Barry Batcheller.

Mr. Batcheller came to North Dakota from New York to attend North Dakota State University, from which he graduated with a B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1977.  He now has more than 30 years of business experience, and has been involved in the startup of six successful companies – including IDA Corporation, Integrated Technical Systems Corporation, Phoenix International Corporation, Intelligent Agricultural Solutions LLC, AFS LLC and Appareo Systems LLC.  He has also served as Director of Technology Growth at Deere & Co. He presently serves as the President and CEO of Appareo Systems, which was recently rated by Inc. magazine as America’s fastest growing engineering company.  Appareo has more than 70 employees and is located in the NDSU Research and Technology Park.

Mr. Batcheller was named the North Dakota Business Innovator of the Year in 1994 and the Fargo Chamber of Commerce Small Business Person of the Year in 1995.  He was named the North Dakota Entrepreneur of the Year and Marketplace Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.  He received an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering from North Dakota State University in 2010, and was recognized by the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce with their ChamberChoice Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2012.

Mr. Batcheller holds more than 20 United States and foreign patents on control systems, instrumentation systems and embedded mobile electronic devices, and has authored numerous technical papers on the use of electronics in agriculture.   He has served on the boards of Xata Corporation, MeritCare (now Sanford Health) and the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corporation.  He is a past president of the NDSU Alumni Association Board of Directors, and is currently serving on the boards of the NDSU Research and Technology Park, Amity Technology LLC and Hemisphere GPS Corporation.