General Bandwidth Inc. (GB) CEO Charlie Vogt continues to leave his mark on the company this week as it announces the hiring of Robert Vrij as senior VP of sales and Jody Bennett as VP of marketing (see General Bandwidth Announces New Hires).

Vogt took the reins at GB about a month ago and he's already installing two names from his past (see General Bandwidth Drafts New CEO).

Vrij was one of Vogt's peers at Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU), when the two jockeyed for position among more than a dozen Lucent sales VPs. "My whole life I've been put into places where the marketing and sales side didn't quite come together," Vrij tells Light Reading.

He left Lucent in mid 2002 and later worked for brief stints at NextiraOne and VoxPath Networks.

Bennett, like Vogt, is a veteran of Taqua, Tekelec Inc. (Nasdaq: TKLC), and Santera. Bennett worked for Vogt at Santera, where he held sales and business development roles. He was VP of marketing at Taqua and saw the company through its acquisition and integration at Tekelec, where he stayed until two weeks ago.

"We really want to recapture what we did at Taqua," Bennett says, noting how Vogt and pals took a stagnant company with solid technology and turned it into acquisition bait (see Tekelec Is Buying Taqua).

As of Monday, Greg Allemann was listed on GB's Website as the company's VP of business development and sales, while Yates Hagan held the VP of sales role. It's not yet clear whether those executives will change roles or titles.

— Phil Harvey, News Editor, Light Reading