The New Jersey Business & Industry Association honored eight companies with an Award for Excellence at its annual Awards for Excellence Dinner on Tuesday, October 19, at the Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village. Three other companies were recognized as Honor Roll recipients.

The Awards For Excellence program recognizes employers for creating jobs, protecting the environment, being outstanding employers, and serving their communities.

"Businesses do a lot for this State by investing in New Jersey and their local communities," NJBIA President Philip Kirschner said. "But all too often, they don't get the recognition they deserve. And that's why we created the Awards for Excellence. These Awards are our way of saying thank you. Thank you for the jobs you create. Thank you for protecting the environment. Thank you for improving your workplaces and helping your employees. And thank you for strengthening our communities."

The Enterprise Award winners, recognized for job creation, are:

• L-3 Communication Systems-East, Camden-Designing and manufacturing the state-of-the-art communications systems that the US government needs for Homeland Security has allowed this South Jersey company to create 315 new jobs over two years.
• The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York City-The Authority undertook an extensive outreach to small businesses and minority- and women-owned businesses to ensure that they got their share of transportation contracts. In 2003 alone, the Port Authority awarded $192 million in grants for minority, women and small business enterprises, representing 1,660 jobs.

The Environmental Quality Award winners, recognized for their environmental protection efforts, are:

• BP America, Inc., Paulsboro-For 23 years, BP America has undertaken an extensive cleanup of the 130-acre New Jersey Terminal property for contaminations that had taken place long before they acquired the property. BP's perseverance is now paying off as plans for redeveloping this once useless property are coming to fruition.
• Princeton Hydro LLC, Ringoes-In Bayonne, wetlands mitigation is a problem because there is very little unused land that a developer could turn into wetlands. This dilemma was holding up the redevelopment of an old municipal landfill, so the engineers at Princeton Hydro LLC came up with a unique solution-create new wetlands right in the tidal marsh itself.

The Outstanding Employer winners, recognized for superior human resources management, are:

• Broadway House for Continuing Care, Newark-Providing daily care for people infected with HIV/AIDS is an emotionally exhausting job that often leaves healthcare professionals burned out and looking for other work. The new management at Broadway

House instituted a comprehensive program of stress reduction and employee recognition that cut the nursing staff turnover rate from 115 percent to 4 percent.

• Organon Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Roseland-Organon considers its employees to be its most important asset. So it protects those assets with comprehensive health benefit packages, a variety of work-life balance policies, and employee discounts on everything from cars to computers.

The Public Service Award winners, recognized for community service, are:

• Wachovia, Summit-When it comes to charity, monetary contributions alone are not enough. Wachovia instituted a program providing employees up to four hours of paid time off a month for community service. Wachovia employees volunteered 48,000 hours of their time to New Jersey charities in 2003.
• Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ, Newark-As a major health insurer, Horizon BC-BS believes that people who are unable to read cannot obtain the medical information necessary to make informed decisions about their healthcare. So the company started the Health Literacy Program, where academically successful high school students serve as mentors to children between the ages of 6 and 11.

Additionally, three other companies received Honor Roll awards for their achievements. They are Millville Iron Works of Millville and Stealth Microwave, Inc. of Trenton in the Enterprise category, and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics of Raritan in the Environmental Quality category.

An independent panel of judges reviewed the nominations. The judging was conducted by nineteen members of the Princeton and Newark Chapters of the Service Corps of

Retired Executives (SCORE) along with two NJBIA policy committee members: John Kinkela of the Environmental Quality Committee and Robert Gerard of the Economic Development Council. WithumSmith+Brown, the New Jersey-based accounting and consulting firm, verified the information supplied by the finalists.