Governor Rick Scott Awards Four Businesses with Governor’s Business Ambassador Award

During today’s meeting of the Florida Cabinet, Governor Rick Scott recognized Bit-Wizards, NANTHEALTH, App River, and JENSEN USA with the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award for their commitment in creating jobs in North Florida. The Governor’s Business Ambassador Award is given to individuals for their efforts in creating jobs and opportunities for Florida families.

Governor Scott said, “It is an honor to recognize these Florida businesses with the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award for their commitment to creating jobs for Florida families. Business such as Bit-Wizards, NANTHEALTH, App River, and JENSEN USA help create an opportunity economy in our state and provide Floridians with the opportunities to succeed and provide for their families. Let’s keep working to build an opportunity economy in our state where every Floridian who wants a job can get one.”

The following businesses received the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award:

Bit-Wizards – Bit-Wizards is a professional services firm that provides information technology consulting and services organized under three core pillars: Application Development, Creative, and Infrastructure. In 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 Bit-Wizards made Inc. Magazine’s List of the Top 5000 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies and was honored as one of Florida Trend Magazine’s Best Companies to Work in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. In 2011, Bit-Wizards was named as one of the 50 Florida Companies to Watch. The staff at Bit-Wizards continues to grow, as we are constantly looking for the most talented developers, creatives, and infrastructure engineers. Bit-Wizards is headquartered in Fort Walton Beach, Florida with 36 employees.

Vince Mayfield, CEO of Bit-Wizards, said, “On behalf of the Bit-Wizards team, we are honored to receive the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award from Governor Rick Scott. Our success is due to our team, customers, partners, and the business friendly climate in Florida. Governor Scott’s emphasis on Keeping Small Business Working is producing results. We appreciate this recognition and strive to do our part to make Florida a great place to live and work.”

NANTHEALTH – NANTHEALTH is an IT healthcare company that provides clinicians with an easy-to-use approach to medical device integration to help make more informed decisions about patients. Using NANTHEALTH’S software solution, hospitals can connect virtual medical device to their CIS, providing clinicians with faster access to more accurate patient information. The NANTHEALTH intelligent Clinical Operating System (iCOS) platform is the first operating system of its kind in health care, enabling 21st century coordinated care at a lower cost.

Dave Dyell, Senior Vice President of Product Development of NANTHEALTH, said, “We consider Florida and Panama City to be partners with our success. We continue to be pleased with the statewide commitment to nurture the high-tech sector; our outstanding universities and community colleges that are wonderful resources; and our ability to recruit top talent that appreciates the local lifestyle. We are delighted that our ongoing success is bringing more high-value jobs to Panama City.”

App River – AppRiver is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider offering award-winning email and web security solutions to businesses of all sizes. AppRiver offers comprehensive, affordable subscription-based solutions that include spam and

virus protection, email encryption and web protection. In addition, the company provides a complete managed service for Microsoft Exchange, as well as a bundled Office 365 solution. Since its inception, AppRiver has sustained a 93 percent customer retention rate while protecting 8.5 million mailboxes for more than 47,000 companies worldwide. The company maintains offices in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Austin, Texas and Lupfig, Switzerland.

Michael Murdoch, AppRiver’s President and CEO, said, “We’re honored to be among the recipients of the Governor’s Business Ambassador Award. Every day, our growing team of 200 employees competes and wins against some of the biggest names in the IT world. We sincerely appreciate Governor Scott’s recognition of our success and of the contribution our company makes to Florida’s economy.”

JENSEN USA – JENSEN GROUP has been in business for over 60 years, beginning in Ronne, Denmark in 1937, on the island of Bornholm as a family-owned business. Now in its third-generation of ownership, the company is the world’s largest industrial laundry equipment manufacturer with an annual turn-over of approximately $300 million. JENSEN GROUP was privately held until the year 2000, when the great-grandson (current CEO) took it public. The JENSEN GROUP’s current US headquarters are in Panama City, Florida with approximately 165 employees and supports the North, Central and South American markets, as well as the Caribbean.

Simon Nield, President of JENSEN USA Inc., said, “I am honored to accept this prestigious award on behalf of JENSEN USA Inc. We first moved to Florida back in 1999. We started small with only 30 people. However, since that time our sales have grown by over 400 percent, we’ve doubled the size of our factory and added 135 skilled employees. A good part of that growth has been in manufacturing, and we are proud to say that around 40 percent of what we produce is exported to all corners of the developed World. Florida has been a good place to grow our business and it is our intention to continue this growth and to continue to create good jobs here in Panama City. I would like to thank Mr. Scott, our honorable Governor, and the State of Florida for recognizing our progress.”