SCRA’s Advanced Technology Institute selected by Wall Street Journal as Winning Workplace Finalist

Winning Workplaces and The Wall Street Journal have collaborated to identify exceptional small organizations – private, nonprofit or publicly held – in their 2009 annual ranking of the Top Small Workplaces. The Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), an SCRA affiliate, has been chosen as one of 35 national finalists.

The 15 Top Small Workplaces will be announced in a Wall Street Journal Report on Small Business on September 28, 2009. Those named will be honored at a conference and celebration in Chicago on October 1-2, 2009. Last year 800 nominations were received and 406 organizations completed online applications. The applicants were narrowed to 35 finalists, and a prestigious panel of judges then selected the 15 winners, which were announced in The Wall Street Journal.
ATI is a key participant in South Carolina’s growing Knowledge Economy. In the Knowledge Economy, employee talent is the most valuable asset. ATI has a Talent Management Plan that encompasses every activity that recruits, develops and promotes the talented associates that work there. The Winning Workplaces evaluation criteria included many of the workplace practices that ATI embraces including: employee learning and growth, flexible work schedules, hiring from within, teamwork, values and performance-based compensation.

ATI builds international collaborations to develop and implement world-class solutions for manufacturing, aerospace, maritime, metals, energy, and healthcare industries. ATI’s collaborative approach engages top talent from premier companies, universities, and government agencies, to define technology roadmaps and research portfolios matched to business demands that provide the requisite resources to address shared challenges. ATI associates work with researchers, engineers, university professors, business executives and government managers on a daily basis.

ATI’s role in these endeavors is to guide the design of a customized collaboration structure that is optimized to meet the specific needs of participants and sponsors. ATI associates serve as a neutral agent to manage the day-to-day research operations and administration for their clients, including processing requests for proposals and maintaining confidentiality of partner business information and intellectual property.

ATI’s partners report improved market transition and return on investment with reduced risk. These practical business benefits enable ATI associates to enjoy participation in the downstream economic and social benefits of the new technologies – such as safety, healthcare, affordability, manufacturing competitiveness, environmental protection, and energy conservation.

“ATI continues to set the pace for SCRA and its affiliates in business, technology and workplace best practices,” said Bill Mahoney, SCRA CEO. “We’re humbly proud of this important, national recognition for SCRA’s ATI affiliate, which follows recent SCRA recognition from the State Science and Technology Institute and from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which also recognized ATI as a great place to work.”

ATI is a private, non-profit applied research and applied services corporation with principal operations at the Trident Research Center in Charleston, South Carolina. ATI is an affiliate of SCRA.
For more information, please visit www.aticorp.org.

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About SCRA
SCRA is a global leader in applied research and commercialization services with offices in South Carolina, Ohio and near McLean, Virginia. SCRA collaborates to advance technology, providing technology-based solutions with assured outcomes to industry and government, with the help of research universities in SC, the US and around the world. .