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The Kruesi Award recognizes companies for innovative products, services, and ways of doing business that have been created and implemented by businesses in the Chattanooga region.

Bill Ford Jr., chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Company, will delivered The Keynote address.

"We are extraordinarily honored that a global business leader of Mr. Ford’s stature will keynote our Spirit of Innovation event this year," said Chamber President and CEO Tom Edd Wilson.

"As the driving force behind the Ford Escape, the world’s first hybrid SUV, and other game-changing vehicles yet to be unveiled, Mr. Ford is the ideal speaker to address the topic of innovation."

Wilson pointed out that Ford, the great grandson of Ford Motor founder Henry Ford, isone of the most sought-after executives in the world because of his leadership, heritage and outspoken style.

Accurate Automation was chosen as a Kruesi Award finalist for an innovative approach to authenticating digitized information, so that it can be used as legal evidence. The company’s technique for authentication, called auto-notary, automatically includes authentication information at the time data is recorded. The process can be used later to prove the conditions in which the recordings were made and to prove their originality.

"Auto-notary is applicable to any digital recording such as photographs, motion video, audio, financial data and personnel or equipment records," says Bob Pap, president of Accurate Automation.

Chattem was selected for its Icy Hot Sleeve, a first-to-market flexible, medicated fabric sleeve that conforms to the joints, such as the elbow or knee, delivering pain-reducing medicine directly into the skin for hours while not interfering with body movements. The breakthroughs in this product include applying menthol to a textile platform, retaining and delivering menthol over time, and creating a comfortable design that fits well across a range of joints without slipping, according to Alec Taylor, Chattem president and COO.

A process using low-pressure steam to remove decals from vehicles earned Hinton Water Blasting Company its place as one of the Kruesi Award finalists. The process requires less time and expense than previous removal methods, and the HWB process doesn’t damage the vehicle’s exterior surface. Company owner Keplan Hinton points out that protection of the vehicle surface allows a greater resale potential for the vehicle owner, especially when the owner doesn’t have to pay for repainting the vehicle.

Innovative Software Design is a Kruesi contender for a system that replaces the standard 2-D photography used for visual records in orthodontic, maxillo-facial surgery and plastic surgery offices with automated 3-D photography. The system is highly automated, requires less clinical and technical skill than industry-standard 2-D photographs and costs thousands of dollars less to implement. Company owners Dan and Sylvia Knoch say the innovation consists of an automated camera system, a 3-D laser scanner and specialized software for collection, storage, retrieval and display of all 3-D records.

Signix has developed a breakthrough in the implementation of Public Key Infrastructure and combined it with other leading technologies to allow individuals to immediately sign and execute legal documents