PROVO — Will West, co-founder and chief executive officer of Control4, was named Utah Entrepreneur of the Year on Thursday by a Utah County group for his company's efforts to create jobs in the state.
The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit, presented the award, which is given annually to individuals in business who have made contributions in their industry or community.
"I am always impressed with the quality of people we get for winners," said Dominique Williams, a leader of the forum. "They're really good people who try hard and are extremely creative."
Control4 was founded in 2003 and focuses on wired and wireless home automation products.
Over the past six years, West's companies have created more than 500 jobs and raised more than 10 percent of the total private equity that has come to Utah, according to forum officials.
Control4 co-founder Eric Smith accepted the award for West and praised his ability to bring ideas to fruition.
"Every tech guy should have a chance to have a Will West, because we've been able to take our ideas and really make things happen," Smith said. "It's been a great ride."
The forum honored venture capitalist Paul Ahlstrom of vSpring Capital for his "contribution to entrepreneurship."
His company, vSpring, focuses on providing funding and management assistance to information technology and life sciences companies in the Mountain West.
The award for "Most Innovative Product" went to CORDA Technologies' Highwire, a program that converts HTML Web pages into PDF documents.
Gary Williams of the Brigham Young University Center for Entrepreneurship received the Ron King Community Service Award for his involvement with new ventures and service on various boards.
"I'm touched that those who selected me feel that I'm worthy of this," Williams said.
Utah Valley's "Best Kept Secret" was deemed by the forum to be Cogito, a Provo-based company that has developed "knowledge storage" technology used by NASA, Boeing and British Nuclear Fuels.
Eugene Bergmann accepted the award for Cogito and joked that his investors — including Ahlstrom — might not be too happy about the award from a marketing perspective.
"We obviously have some work to do," he said.
E-mail: mdecker@desnews.com