David Dechow Receives Automated Imaging Association (AIA) Achievement Award

(Ann Arbor, Michigan - February 5, 2007)  David Dechow, President of Aptúra Machine Vision Solutions, is the recipient of the 2007 Automated Imaging Achievement Award.  The award, which was presented to Dechow by the Automated Imaging Association (AIA) on February 1 at the annual AIA Business Conference in Orlando, Florida, honors industry leaders for outstanding contributions in industrial and/or scientific imaging.

‘‘Mr. Dechow is being recognized for over twenty-five years of engineering and successfully implementing machine vision solutions in a wide varity of industries,’‘ said Jeffrey A. Burnstein, Executive Director of AIA.  ‘‘He is well known as a leading expert in vision systems integration and has enriched the industry throughout his career by promoting machine vision use, educating end users and serving on the AIA Board of Directors.’‘

Mr. Dechow founded Aptúra Machine Vision Solutions in 2003 and it serves customers in the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto- Rico and the Pacific Rim.  Aptúra specializes in general purpose machine vision integration, and keeps up technologically with the expansion of the machine vision component market, including smart cameras and sensors, embedded smart cameras, 3D technologies, and PC based machine vision including Camera Link® and GigE Vision™ cameras.

Mr. Dechow served on the AIA Board of Directors for fourteen years, including a two-year term as president and a term as a member of the Automation Technologies Council (ATC) governing board.  He began his career as a software programmer and engineer at Martin Systems in Lansing, Michigan (an integration company).  Following a brief stint at vision component manufacturer Intelledex Corp., Dechow co-founded the successful Insight Integration, Inc., which was acquired by ISRA Vision Systems.  Mr. Dechow has written over twenty articles on machine vision technology, integration and business that have been published in various industry journals and magazines.

Mr. Dechow joins an impressive list of past winners, including recent recipients such as: Dr. Steven Case, CyberOptics Corporation; Dr.-Ing. Norbert Stein of VITRONICS; Dr. Savvas Chamberlain of DALSA; Perry West of Automated Vision Systems, Inc.; Amir Novini of Applied Vision Company, Nello Zuech of Vision Systems International; Dwight Carlson, formerly of Perceptron; Dr. Robert Shillman of Cognex, Ken Levy of KLA-Tencor and Pat Costa of RVSI, Inc.

Founded in 1984, AIA is the world’s largest machine vision trade group, representing over 260 member companies from 26 nations.  Members include leading suppliers of complete vision systems, vision components, system integrators, end users, OEMs, consulting firms, and research groups. 

The AIA’s Annual Business Conference attracts some 190 industry leaders and covers key topics such as market trends and forecasts, future market opportunities and technology developments that affect the industry.  The 16th annual AIA Business Conference will be held January 30 – February 1, 2008, in Orlando, Florida.  Nominations for the 2008 Achievement Award are now being accepted; a nomination form can be found at www.machinevisiononline.org.  For more information on AIA, visit www.machinevisiononline.org or contact AIA Headquarters at (734) 994-6088.