Fairmount Automation Founders Receive Entrepreneurs of the Year Award from Alma Mater

Drexel University Honors Achievement of Alumnae at Annual Reunion Celebration

PHILADELPHIA, PA-MAY 4, 2002-Fairmount Automation founders, Dr. Andrés Lebaudy and Mr. Gary Cane, were both honored by their Alma Mater, Drexel University, with the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award. This award was presented to Lebaudy and Cane in recognition of their initiative and innovation in creating a new and successful business venture. Presenting the award was the University's president, Dr. Constantine Papadakis.

"Drexel University is quite unique from other area universities in that it fosters and encourages a spirit of entrepreneurism and innovation in its students very early on," said Lebaudy, Fairmount Automation's CEO. "As a result, the University was instrumental in giving me the foundation and experiences I needed before committing to the challenge of starting and running my own company."

"Drexel University not only provided me with challenging academics, but also gave me an opportunity to network with area business leaders and professional engineers in my field providing me with a substantial head start after graduation," agreed Cane, Fairmount Automations VP of Engineering and Product Development. "In fact, all of us at Fairmount continue to maintain important relationships with the University in many facets of our company's operations."

Fairmount Automation, located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania was founded in 1996 and serves the $160 billion process controls and automation industry. Their rugged process controllers automate mission-critical processes onboard U.S. Navy ships including propulsion boilers, waste heat boilers and distilling plants as well as aircraft carrier catapults, used to launch planes from the carriers while deployed at sea.

Today, more than one in four naval surface ships rely on Fairmount equipment for their most demanding applications and many of the company's products can be found on some of the ships recently deployed in the war against terrorism including the aircraft carriers USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Carl Vinson.

The company has grown from 2 employees in 1997 to 13 current employees with revenues of more than $1 million in each of the last 2 years. In fact, Fairmount Automation was recently ranked 75th in the Philadelphia Business Journal's 2001 annual guide of the region's fastest-growing private companies.

True to its alma mater, Fairmount Automation currently employs 5 full time Drexel alumnae and hosts Drexel University co-op students as well.

About Fairmount Automation, Inc. 

Fairmount Automation designs, manufactures, and sells rugged process control and automation products for use in harsh environments. The company also operates an engineering services division that is sponsored by the U.S. Navy to investigate cutting edge distributed control technologies. The company's flagship product, the FAC-2000, is a fully programmable controller that is used to monitor and regulate industrial machinery such as boilers, pumps, distillers, heat exchangers, aircraft carrier catapults, and waste transfer systems. Since 1997, the company has been a leading supplier of rugged control equipment to the Navy, where our products are controlling mission-critical processes on more than 25% of the surface fleet. Our unique combination of hardware, software and services enables us to offer a compelling solution to our customers. Our mission is to become the leading provider of survivable process control and automation products for harsh environments through the continued development of innovative and technologically advanced products specifically packaged to serve those environments. We aim to be the dominant automation original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for military applications and to consistently gain market share in the worldwide industrial controls market. The company is based in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit our website at www.FairmountAutomation.com or contact us at info@FairmountAutomation.com or (610) 935-8656.