SATAI Announces New Technology Innovation Awardees
October 19, 2009
J. Dan Bates Is Named AT&T STARs Technology Hero
Bates and other STARs winners will be given awards during SATAI STARs 2009 Technology Innovation Conference Tuesday, October 27
With a steady hand and a focus on a diversified scientific portfolio and sustainable growth, J. Dan Bates has steered Southwest Research Institute since 1997.
As a result, SwRI – the city’s premiere nonprofit scientific research and development organization – has grown and flourished in the past dozen years.
The institute has grown fiscally, physically and in prestige. From patent approvals to awards and peer recognition, from contracts with private companies to federal research funding, by every measure, SwRI has been thriving under Bates’s leadership, despite two recessions during his tenure.
Because of the support he has shown to the highly trained scientists and engineers at the institute and his smart approach to growth and balanced contracting, SATAI has named Bates the AT&T STARs Technology Hero for 2009.
The Technology Hero Award is presented to a company or individual, who has played a major civic role in paving the way for the technology and bioscience industries in San Antonio and/or South Texas.
“Dan Bates’s stewardship of this phenomenal scientific resource has been outstanding,” said James Poage, president and CEO of SATAI. “Under his leadership, the Southwest Research Institute has literally broken ground on many new facilities on campus.”
Revenue has more than doubled since Bates assumed the helm of the nonprofit research institute. Last year, revenue grew to $563 million, the greatest amount in the institute’s history.
Under Bates, R&D Magazine has recognized 17 of the institute’s projects as being among the 100 most significant technical accomplishments of the year.
The institute’s $218 million payroll employs more than 3,300 people, including hundreds of persons with Ph.D.s and master’s degrees.
“The institute attracts top-notch scientists from throughout the world,” said Poage. “These are all high quality, high-paying jobs, and the people who fill these positions elevate the city’s intelligence quotient and make the city an even more attractive place for other scientists to live and work. When the institute succeeds and grows, so does the city.”
Southwest Research Institute was founded in 1947 by Texas oilman and philanthropist, Thomas Baker Slick, Jr. Bates is the institute’s third president.
“We’re fortunate to have the Southwest Research Institute here in San Antonio,” Poage said. “And the institute is fortunate to have Dan Bates leading it.”
Bates will be honored, along with the SATAI Science and Technology Hall of Fame and Technology Super Star winners, during SATAI’s STARs Entrepreneur and Investor event on October 27. The awards event tops off an all-day technology innovation conference for entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and other high tech advocates.
Retired, five-mission NASA astronaut, John Blaha, along with Rackspace co-founder Pat Condon and Lanham Napier, Rackspace CEO, will serve as keynote speakers during the conference.
An elevator pitch contest will take place during the afternoon, before the awards event. And winners of the elevator pitch contest will be announced, along with the STARs honorees.
“This is the event where the city’s brain trust and capital trust come together to figure out how to expand the technology infrastructure that is the key to the city’s future,” Poage said. “It will be a great conference. It could be the event where the next Rackspace or NewTek will be dreamed up and start to be realized.”
SATAI Science & Technology Hall of Fame
Given to an individual, an inventor or innovator who has provided a significant scientific or technological advance that has had a social or economic impact in the world, in the past, in the present, and in the future.
Michael A. Fischer, Founder and President of CHILD Systems, Inc.
Mr. Fischer is an innovator and inventor, holding more than two dozen patents related to wired and wireless data networking and embedded processor architectures. Fischer developed the technologies that enabled data transmission through local area networks (LAN) and through wireless networks (WLAN) while serving in various leadership positions since the 1980s, including principal architect at Datapoint Corporation, founder and president of CHILD Systems, CTO at Digital Ocean and CHOICE Microsystems, and senior scientist at Intersil. His contributions to the development of the IEEE 802.11 standard and design of the first 802.11b controller chip literally helped give life to WiFi technology. In recent years he has developed technology for 4G cellular phone handsets as CTO of Link-7 Communications and a distinguished member of the technical staff at Freescale Semiconductor.
Nancy R. Kudla, former CEO and co-founder and Frank Kudla, former CFO and co-founder, dNovus RDI, Inc.
As partners in life and business, Nancy and Frank Kudla nurtured dNovus RDI, Inc. from a one-woman consulting firm in 1989, into one of the seven largest women-owned businesses in San Antonio, employing 250 persons in San Antonio, Austin, Washington D.C., and Hampton, Va., with an annual $32 million in earnings. Mrs. Kudla served as founder and chief executive officer. Mr. Kudla joined his wife, working full time as chief financial officer for the company in 1994. The company specialized in network design, implementation, operation and maintenance. The Kudlas sold dNovus in December last year for $38 million to Kforce, a Tampa, Fla.-based professional staffing firm.
Larry J. Miller, M.D.
Dr. Miller co-founded San Antonio-based Vidacare Corporation in 2001. In conjunction with scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Dr. Miller and Vidacare developed the EZ-IO, the first battery-powered device providing immediate access to intraosseous space – or the bone marrow – to deliver vital fluids and medications to patients of various ages in emergency care. Last year, the Wall Street Journal gave Vidacare the Gold award – its highest honor – in its technology innovation competition. For 10 years, Dr. Miller served as Chairman of Emergency Medicine at the five Baptist Health System Hospitals in San Antonio. He has served more than 120,000 emergency patients during his more than 30 years as an emergency medicine specialist. Currently, he is medical director for five Emergency Medical Services organizations.
SATAI Technology Super Star
Given to a promising early-stage company that is poised to become a leader in South Texas’s technology community.
GlobalSCAPE, Inc.
Since San Antonio-based GlobalSCAPE started selling its consumer file transfer program, CuteFTP, in 1996, the company has sold more than a million software licenses and seen annual revenue grow to $18 million. The publicly traded company has transformed into a global provider of secure information exchange solutions and is recognized by Gartner Group as a leader in the managed file transfer market. GlobalSCAPE counts the U.S. Army, numerous other government organizations, and 95 of the Fortune 100 companies among its clients.
NewTek
After a dozen years of success as one of the leading developers of video and 3D graphics technology, NewTek moved its headquarters in 1997 from Topeka, Kan. to San Antonio, Texas, where leaders said it has been easier to attract programmers, sales and technical support staff. NewTek has a history of delivering revolutionary products for the video and 3D industries and has done so again with the TriCaster™ portable live production system and 3PLAY™ a portable HD/SD slow motion replay system. NewTek has been recognized with two Emmy® Awards for Technical achievement and artists using NewTek’s LightWave 3D® have won 14 Emmy Awards for visual effects, more Emmy Awards than any other 3D application.
P3S Corporation
Since the company’s founding in 2005 as a one-woman consultancy, revenue for P3S Corporation has grown by a dizzying 5,900 percent, according to Inc. magazine, which ranked P3S 17th among the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the magazine’s annual survey and No. 1 when both women-run and Hispanic-run companies were measured. Founded by Mary Ellen Trevino, who is a St. Mary’s University honors graduate and who earned a master of business administration degree from the University of Texas San Antonio, the company specializes in information technology security, design, and implementation, as well as homeland security services, program management services and financial management services.
