It was a great moment and there was nothing except a gathering of luminaries when the New Mexico Business Weekly honored 26 individuals from the field of technology at its first “Who’s Who in Technology” event. On the occasion there were more than 250 attendees and all did gather for a reception at Intel Corp. in Rio Rancho to celebrate the honorees. It is to noted, that all did look into Intel’s Formula One race car simulator also. It is an improved reality demonstration and games, movies and data analysis in 3-D.

The event was sponsored by Intel, the New Mexico Technology Council and Sandia National Laboratories’ Small Business Utilization Department.

Who became instrumental in selecting the awardees? There was, in reality, a panel of esteemed technology experts. This included Randy Burge, Principal of Proactive Teams Consulting and Founder of the New Mexico Technology Council; Joseph L. Cecchi, Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Engineering; David Durgin, Founding Partner of the Verge Fund; Lisa Kuuttila, President and CEO of the Science and Technology Corp. (STC.UNM) at the University of New Mexico; and Kim Sanchez Rael, General Partner of Flywheel Ventures.

It is useful to mention that judges were perceived to create honoree categories including Entrepreneurs, who create technology companies; Facilitators, who help create connections that lead tech companies to success; Investors, who provide the money to fund innovation; Technologists, who create the innovations; and Corporate, leaders of entities that have created tech jobs on a large scale in New Mexico.

The Business Weekly’s 2009 Who’s Who in Technology honorees include:
Entrepreneurs
• Dr. James Cramer, Science & Engineering Associates
•Terry Dunlay, IntelliCyt Corp.
•Dr. Ned Godshall, Altela Inc.
•Lem Hunter, Vibrant Corp.
•Dr. Ries Robinson, InLight Solutions
•Dr. Waneta Tuttle, Southwest Medical Ventures
Facilitators
•Dr. Thomas Bowles, Gov. Bill Richardson’s science adviser (on loan from Los Alamos National Laboratory)
•Sherman McCorkle, Technology Ventures Corp.
•Jackie Kerby Moore, Sandia Science & Technology Park
•Belinda Padilla, Los Alamos National Laboratory
•Deborah Peacock, Peacock Myers
•Ellen Veseth, New Mexico Office of Science and Technology
•Chuck Wellborn, Wellborn Strategies LLC
Investors
•John Chavez, New Mexico Angels
Gavin Christensen, vSpring Capital
•Trevor Loy, Flywheel Ventures
•Stephanie Spong, Epic Ventures
•Tom Stephenson, Verge Fund
Technologists
•Thomas Brennan, ARCH Venture Partners
•Dr. Steven Brueck, Center for High Technology Materials, UNM
•Dr. Jim McNally, Applied Technology Associates
•Dr. Alton D. Romig Jr., Sandia National Laboratories
•Dr. Cheryl Willman, University of New Mexico Cancer Center
Corporate
•Steven E. Downie, Ktech
•Tim Hendry, Intel Corp.
•Dr. Robert Rubin, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute