Over 500 of Seattle’s who’s-who gathered to honor this year’s Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” recipients at an awards dinner at the Washington State Convention Center last night.
Last night’s awards dinner was one of 47 regional awards ceremonies in the 10th annual event. Of course local internet companies scored high at the awards, and Seattle.internet.com was on the scene for all the action.
John Holt of The Cobalt Group took top honor in the e-service division. The Cobalt Group develops integrated Web products, services, and internet marketing sources for traditional auto dealers.
In the e-Software division, Michael Brochu from Primus was the recipient of the honor. Primus produces e-Customer Relationship Management software. Stemming from an early focus in the customer support industry, the goal of the company was to find a more efficient process for resolving the technical problems of customers.
Peter Neupert, co-founder of DrugStore.com, took home the award in the e-Tailing category. Believing that consumers using the internet to purchase goods expect a more information-intensive experience than when they shop at a retail store, drugstore.com offers pages of product data and other related topics.
The award for technology went to Edmund Schweitzer of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Schweitzer’s research in digital protective relaying became his PhD project and led to the world’s first microprocessor-based protective relay, helping make electric power safer, more reliable and economical.
In the E-B2B category, Nicolas Hanauer of AvenueA received the award. AvenueA provides full service advertising placement for the internet.
The Master Entrepreneur award was also bestowed upon an internet player, Doug Walker of WRQ, Walker has provided 19 years of leadership at WRQ, a maker of software to help IT professionals in the transition to e-business.
Among the night’s other award recipients were: Carl and Renee Behnke, Sur La Table, in the Retail/Consumer division, and Mark Leavitt of MedicaLogic in the Health Care category.
“The event is very special for us, we like to really focus on the mixture between the technology companies as well as the traditional companies,” says Michael Bolt, Events Coordinator at Ernst and Young. “I think we have a really good mix of not only entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurial leaders.”