AITA's Leadership in Technology Awards Banquet Honors Alabama High Tech Successes

Winners Represented from Across the State

Huntsville, AL, October 25, 2007 Today, AITA announced the winners from the Leadership in Technology Awards Banquet, held at Huntsville's Von Braun Center October 25th. With nominees representing the entire state, finalists and winners were selected from Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Huntsville.

The fourth annual event honoured winners in four categories: Large and Small Company of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, and Top IT Executive of the Year. The criteria for Large and Small Company included being located within the state, proven successful with such distinguishing factors as employee pride, financial growth strategic analysis, recent introductions of new of new or updated products and/or services, strategic alliances, acquisitions, historical profitability and more. The delineation between large and small company was set at $15M.

Mr. Kevin Maney, contributing editor for Conde Nast Portfolio and formerly of USA Today provided the evening's keynote speech, focusing on the importance of technology innovation.

The winner of the Large Company of the Year category was Intergraph Corporation from Huntsville, and the Small Company of the Year winner was CTS in Birmingham.

Birmingham's Bryan Council of Metro Monitor was named Entrepreneur of the Year, and Mike Whitt from Compass Bank Birmingham was named Top IT Executive of the Year.

The entrepreneur category is determined by the measurable creativity and success of the individual, and some of the criteria for selecting the winner of this category include recent successes and their role in the formation of a company, risks taken and obstacles overcome.

Generally, the criteria used for selecting the winner in the Top IT Executive category is one who has driven a culture of applying advanced technologies to solve operational problems. While this could be within a company in a technology industry, the spirit of this award is in creatively solving business problems through the use of advanced technologies and the investment in a culture of automation. What makes other want to follow this leader carries considerable weight by the judges.

"The scope of this year's nominations and those being honored this week as finalists and winners truly reflect what Alabama has to offer the rest of the world in high technology innovation", said Kate Gray, Executive Director of AITA. "Bringing them all together for this recognition is certainly one of AITA's missions."

In addition to the new award winners for 2007, Mr. Chuck Jett of Emageon was honoured with the AITA Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the Birmingham technology growth. On hand was Mr. Jim Busby of Mobile's Centralite, the 2006 Lifetime recipient, to present the award to Mr. Jett.

A full listing of the 2007 finalists and winners is available on the AITA website, http://www.alabama-infotech.org/stage/technology-award-program.shtml.

About AITA
AITA is Alabama's only non-profit association dedicated to raising awareness of high tech issues, events, policy, education, funding, and other key areas affecting the Alabama high tech industry. AITA members enjoy a wealth of information, a resourceful network of peers, informative seminars, timely updates, and a variety of resources to assist with all of the high tech endeavours of Alabama business.