O.C. firms honored at the American Business Awards

College Works Painting receives a Silver Stevie as company of the year in the construction, manufacturing and materials industry.

by Caitlin Adams

The American Business Awards, held June 18 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, recognized dozens of the country’s most innovative and successful companies, including several Orange County-based firms, as leaders in their industries.

The Stevie Awards, nicknamed for the word “crowned” in Greek, evaluate and rank companies in dozens of categories, in areas ranging for best corporate responsibility programs to customer service team of the year.

Eight Orange County businesses were awarded a total of 22 honors at last week’s gala awards ceremony. The most recognized among local honorees was Quality Systems Inc. (QSI), an Irvine-based software developer and management programs firm serving the medical industry. The company took home 14 awards in total, including five silver awards and seven bronze awards. The company’s including two Golden Stevies for best online marketing or sales brochure, and executive of the year in the health products and services industry, recognizing the company’s CEO, Steven Plochocki. Plochocki likened the awards to “the Oscars of business.”

“We’re proud of the fact that so many of our areas in the business were recognized. We have over two thousand employees and it’s a great testimony to the team,” Plochocki said. “As one of the top companies in this sector we value performance, we believe in third party competition. These awards are based on comparability and ranking, how the judges view your product and performance. It’s awfully nice for us to be recognized among all the different companies.”

Two other Orange County companies were also recognized with Golden Stevies. SecureAuth Corporation in Irvine was selected as the top firm among the fastest-growing businesses with up to 100 employees. And BDS Marketing Inc., also in Irvine, took home the top recognition as company of the year in the advertising, marketing and public relations industry.

This round of awards represents the first half of the American Business Awards. The next set of awards, recognizing tech industry honorees, will be announced Sept. 17 in San Francisco.

Whereas multiple silver and bronze honorees may be recognized for each award, only one Golden Stevie honoree is selected for each category.