Code42 was having a bit of a rough year before Joe Payne stepped in. Despite continued growth, observers thought the darling of the Minneapolis tech scene seemed panicked after it pulled out of a new headquarters project in Uptown and saw two of its top execs step down. Bad news seems to have died down since Payne stepped in. He’s an executive with a proven track record—during a previous stint as CEO of Eloqua, a Virginia-based marketing software company, he increased revenue from $11 million to $125 million and led it through an IPO and sale to Oracle for nearly $900 million. How successful he is at Code42 could shape the future of Minnesota’s place in the “Silicon Prairie.”