National Tech Medal Winners Include eBay, OS Creator, And Net Engineer

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and President George Bush have announced this year's recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

A packet switching inventor, a software engineer and designer, and eBay are among the 2007 laureates scheduled to receive the nation's highest honor for technological and scientific achievement during a White House ceremony on Sept. 29.

Paul Baran, of Atherton, Calif., will receive the award for inventing packet switching, which helped make the Internet possible.

David Cutler, of Medina, Wash., will receive the medal for designing and implementing global standards for real-time, personal, and server-based operating systems. His work has contributed to computer architecture, compilers, operating systems, and software engineering.

EBay, the online auction site based in San Jose, Calif., is one of two companies honored during this round. Gutierrez credited eBay with creating technology that encouraged and supported online trade, enabling global entrepreneurship, and contributing to the Internet's global growth.

The second company, Skunk Works, of Palmdale, Calif., has developed aircraft technologies and systems for the federal government. The division of Lockheed has a 65-year record that includes stealth capability.

Adam Heller will receive the award for contributions to electrochemistry and bioelectrochemistry, and C. Grant Willson will receive the medal for creating lithographic imaging materials and techniques for improved microelectronic parts. Heller and Wilson are from Austin, Texas.

Armand Feigenbaum, of Pittsfield, Mass., will receive the medal for defining the Total Quality Management approach to achieving excellence and global competitiveness. Finally, Roscoe O. Brady of Bethesda, Md. will receive the medal for uncovering enzymatic defects in hereditary metabolic disorders, which led to enzyme replacement therapy.

"America leads the world in technological innovation because of men, women and cutting-edge corporations like those we honor this year," Gutierrez said in an announcement. "Their contributions to our society have impacted all of our lives and they serve as both an inspiration and as role models for future generations of American innovators."