The winners of the inaugural STAR Technology Awards were announced at the first annual Software Technology and Resource (STAR) Symposium, held in Phoenix, Arizona November 7-9. The STAR Awards recognize significant contributions to the aviation maintenance industry by software and technology providers.

The four STAR Awards presented during the 2004 STAR Symposium were:

� STAR Best Contribution to the Aviation Aftermarket Award. The winner was Mxi Technologies for its Maintenix software, which has helped customers achieve some remarkable gains in efficiency. This includes Executive Jet Management growing its managed aircraft fleet by 100 percent with an increase in management staff of just 25 percent; Air Canada, enjoying a 30 percent reduction in A320 fault message traffic, which saved the airline $6,000 per year per airplane; and Bombardier NATO Flight Training reducing downtime between training flights to 12 minutes, which increased airplane availability by 7 percent.

� STAR Most Outstanding Enter-prise Integration Award. This award was won by MIRO Technologies's GOLD software, which has gained in comprehensive capabilities in the growing government/ military performance-based logistics arena. Key features of GOLD include the ability to see condition and location of all assets of an organization.

� STAR Most Innovative Tech-nology of the Year Award. The Innovative Technology Award was won by Continuum Applied Technology for its CORRIDOR maintenance business software. CORRIDOR's noteworthy features include real-time bar-coding for data collection; complete functionality on wireless devices; and the ability to incrementally close a workorder during a job.

� STAR Special Award. Gradient eLearning won the Special Award, which acknowledges a company's special efforts to solve a critical problem in the aviation maintenance industry. Gradient eLearning's software-based training tools offer an extremely simple yet robust interface for computer-based training systems that not only teach but also ensure that work-steps are not missed and that the training and maintenance documentation matches precisely the aircraft being serviced.

The next STAR Awards ceremony will be held at the 2005 STAR Symposium in October 2005.