RICHLAND, WA - InnovaTek was one of ten companies receiving the 2001 Entrepreneurial Award in a program jointly sponsored by the Richland Rotary Club and the Tri-City Industrial Development Council (TRIDEC). The program was instituted to recognize the importance of entrepreneurial spirit in the community for future economic diversification. The Awards spotlight businesses in Benton and Franklin Counties that are not fully mature, but show promise for the future. Nominations for the awards came from nine community-based organizations involved in entrepreneurial support programs. InnovaTek was nominated for the Award by the Applied Process Engineering Laboratory, the high-tech incubator facility where InnovaTek is located.
The Award was presented to Dr. Patricia Irving, InnovaTek President and CEO, for her "outstanding entrepreneurial spirit and contribution to the region's economy" at a special ceremony during the March meeting of the Rotary Club. In accepting the Award, Dr. Irving stated "This honor belongs to all InnovaTekkies, because we operate as a team in achieving our goals, which have been substantial in the past year. So I would like to acknowledge the InnovaTek employees whose hard work and dedication were responsible for creating and developing the intellectual property that forms the basis of our technologies and whose perseverance was necessary to engineer commercializable products."