Waterloo Region, ON – October 24, 2012 – Four entrepreneurial leaders who have helped shape Waterloo Region’s business landscape will be honored at this year’s Entrepreneur Hall of Fame gala event November 15th. Recipients of the awards have been selected for showing exceptional leadership and for greatly contributing to the Region.

This year’s recipients include: Legacy Award recipients the late Barney Strassburger Sr. of TwinCorp, and Jim Estill of Canrock Ventures; Luminary Award recipient Gerry Remers of Christie Digital Systems Inc.; and Hall of Fame Intrepid Award winner Mate Prgin of Avvasi. The recognition will take place at the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame dinner hosted by Communitech at Bingeman’s Embassy Room.

“We welcome this annual opportunity to showcase some of the incredible leaders in our community who have made such a solid contribution to Waterloo Region,” said Iain Klugman, CEO of Communitech. “These recipients are an inspiration to others who follow in the tradition of entrepreneurship that has been part of our regional culture for a century.”

Here is a look at the contribution by each of these industry leaders:

The late Barney Strassburger Sr. started his first eating establishment in 1947, but his biggest business opportunity arose in January, 1960 when Strassburger met now legendary Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate the late Colonel Harland Sanders at a restaurant convention. Over a handshake, the two agreed that Strassburger could add Kentucky Fried Chicken as a menu item in his restaurant on Victoria Street in Kitchener. TwinCorp, as his company is named after his two sets of twins, became a franchisee for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The company now employs between 1,100 and 1,300 people at restaurants from Windsor to Niagara Region, to Parry Sound, as well as operating Keybrand Foods, a food manufacturing and distribution operation. The family tradition of entrepreneurship has encompassed three generations of the Strassburger family, a true legacy to the region and well deserving of recognition with a Hall of Fame Legacy Award.

Jim Estill started EMJ Data, a technology distribution business, from the trunk of his car in 1979 while in his final year of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He grew that business to $350 million before its acquisition in 2004 by SYNNEX – a distributor of computer hardware, software and peripherals as well as consumer electronics. As CEO of SYNNEX Canada, Estill led the company over the next five years from $800 million to $2 billion in sales. Jim was one of the founding board members of RIM where he served for 13 years. He now lives in New York and is a partner in early-stage venture fund CanRock Ventures. Estill has been an investor, advisor and board member for many technology businesses, with a legacy of entrepreneurship and inspiration.

Gerry Remers is President and Chief Operating Officer of Christie, one of the world's top producers of visual display solutions. Overseeing engineering, operations and global quality, Remers has spearheaded acquisitions and strategy and has successfully led the company’s rapid expansion into new markets, such as medical and digital signage. Under his leadership, Christie has grown from $100M to $800M in size, increasing its local employment seven-fold. Prior to joining Christie, Remers was President of Electrohome Projection Systems where he negotiated the sale of the business unit to Christie in 1999. Remers is a strong contributor to the regional tech sector and most recently has served as Co-Chair of Communitech, Chair of Shad International, Honorary Chair of the United Way, as well as having served on the boards of Renison College and the Canadian Digital Media Network. He is currently a board member at the University of Waterloo and serves on the Leadership/Advisory Councils of the Perimeter Institute, Wilfrid Laurier University, and other local non-profit institutions. Through his continued contribution to tech innovation, Remers has demonstrated that he is truly a Luminary Entrepreneur.

Mate Prgin is the Founder, President and CEO of Avvasi; Avvasi is the pioneer and leader in video quality of experience management for mobile service providers, and seeks to revolutionize how service providers manage on-demand video traffic like Netflix and YouTube. Prior to Avvasi, Prgin led the video infrastructure business at LSI Corporation. LSI acquired VideoLocus, an H.264 fabless semiconductor company and pioneer of the now ubiquitous H.264 video standard, where Prgin was the co-founder and CEO. Previous to VideoLocus, he held several engineering roles at PixStream, a video networking systems company that was acquired by Cisco Systems. As the Intrepid Award recipient, Prgin is recognized as someone who has already shown strong leadership, with great promise for future innovation and contribution.

The new inductees join past Hall of Fame inductees who have included, among others: Jim Balsillie, RIM; Savvas Chamberlain, DALSA Corporation; Dan Einwechter, Challenger Motor Freight; Tom Jenkins, OpenText; A.R. Kaufman, Kaufman Rubber Company; Oscar Kuntz, Kuntz Electroplating; Mike Lazaridis, RIM; The Lang Family, The Lang Tanning Company; Ian McPhee, WATCOM; Eric Peterson & Larry Williamson (jointly inducted), Mitra Imaging; Val O’Donovan, COM DEV International; The Piller Family, Piller’s Sausage and Delicatessens Ltd.; Carl A. Pollock, Electrohome; Frank Rovers, Conestoga-Rovers & Associates; Ron Schlegel, RBJ Schlegel Holdings Inc.; J.M. Schneider, J.M. Schneider Ltd.; Joseph Seagram, Seagram and Sons Ltd.; Harold Seegmiller, Seegmiller E & E Ltd; Moses Springer, Mutual Life Assurance Company; Joerg Stieber, Ontario Drive & Gear Ltd.; Fred Stork, Unitron; Klaus Woerner, ATS; Clifford, Emory & Lester Zehr (jointly inducted), Zehr’s Markets Limited.

The Waterloo Region Hall of Fame Gala event will be taking place at Bingemans Embassy Room, 425 Bingemans Centre Drive, Kitchener on Thursday, November 15th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. For more on this event and to register go to: https://ams.communitech.ca/events/list.aspx

About Communitech

Communitech is the regional hub for the commercialization of innovative technologies supporting and building a Southwestern Ontario tech cluster of close to 1,000 companies that now generates more than $30B in revenue. A member of the Ontario Network of Excellence (www.oneinnovation.ca), which is funded by the Ontario government, Communitech supports tech companies at all stages of their growth and development – from startup companies, to rapidly growing SMEs, to large global players – to create greater numbers of successful global businesses for Ontario and for Canada.

Media Contact

Shelley Grandy, Sr. PR Advisor, Communitech, 905-866-2656 or segrandy@communitech.ca