About Inc 500 |5000: In 1982, Inc. introduced the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. Since then, this prestigious list of the nation’s most successful private companies has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success. In 2007, the Inc. 500 list expanded to the Inc. 500|5000, providing a deeper and richer understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape as well as capturing broader spectrum of success. The Inc. 500|5000 also ranks the winning companies by industry, metro and state areas, revenue, and number or employees.

Sarniak has been working as a co-op student at DornerWorks since the summer of 2009. Upon graduating, he is taking a full-time position at the company, remarking “I really like the atmosphere, people, and the work here at DornerWorks.” Steve VanderLeest, Vice-President of R&D, noted that “DornerWorks is pleased to have talented engineers like Sean on our staff. We aim to provide meaningful work and challenging projects for every employee, creating an environment that attracts exceptional engineers. We are proud to have him on our team and we offer our hearty congratulations to Sean for this special achievement.”

BOSTON, MA – The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Fortune Magazine released the 2011 Inner City 100 list of the fastest-growing inner city companies in the U.S. DornerWorks from Grand Rapids, MI ranked 33 on this year’s list. The Inner City 100 program recognizes successful inner city companies and their CEO’s as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. The full list can be viewed at www.fortune.com/innercity100.

The rankings for each company were announced at the Inner City 100 Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 12, 2011 in Boston, MA. Winners attended a two-day event featuring seminars for Inner City 100 owners and managers at Harvard Business School, a procurement symposium and an awards gala that drew more than 500 guests.

The Inner City 100 list provides unmatched original data on the fastest growing inner-city businesses in the U.S. In the last 13 years, 661 different companies have earned positions on the Inner City 100, collectively generating more than $2.2 billion in annual revenues and creating nearly 70,000 new jobs. Chevron Corporation, Staples Foundation and Goldman Sachs are long-time sponsors of the program.

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As the economic recovery of the automotive industry and supporting OEM’s continues on both sides of Michigan, DornerWorks has been overwhelmed with staffing requests, many from the east side of the state. “We are excited about the opportunity to expand our presence in east Michigan and want to assure new clients that they will receive the same level of expertise that our west Michigan clients have experienced for the past decade,” notes Jason Lovell, VP of sales and marketing for DornerWorks. “Our recruitment efforts have increased over 200% in the last 3 months due to demand for the talent DornerWorks is known for.” Lovell added.

In August of 2010, DornerWorks announced the addition of Fred Dumsa as the Regional Director for the East Side Division. Fred is a lifetime resident of Michigan, and brings over 26 years experience at Delphi Corporation where he held several leadership roles. In his new role, Fred will focus on providing project management and recruiting efforts while maintaining the relationships with DornerWorks existing east side clientele. Dumsa said of his new role, “The demand has been overwhelming, in a good way, and I’m just proud to be part it. DornerWorks has weathered the economic “storm” with such precision and grace – that’s something not a lot of young companies can say.”

Nancy Mazza joined DornerWorks in December of 2010 as the New Business Development Manager for the Eastern Division. “Nancy brings over two decades of experience in sales and marketing for the automotive, industrial, and medical markets in east Michigan, and we are excited to have her on our team,” said Dumsa.

The exact location of DornerWorks new east side office has not been finalized. “It’s critical with any expansion plan that you take into account several factors, including industry needs and trends, as well as where to find the best talent. We want our clients to follow us, not the other way around, so a central office space that meets not only our client’s needs, but our valuable employee needs is paramount to the success of our expansion into east Michigan,” said Dorner. “Keeping a strong focus over the years on our core competencies has paid off and we feel an added sense of responsibility to continue that same level of focus for our east Michigan presence. DornerWorks is ready and able to provide the engineering services that east Michigan needs!”

ARINC 653 – The ARINC 653 specification (Avionics Application Standard Software Interface) outlines requirements for creating a robust software environment where isolated domains of applications execute independently of one another. The domains are isolated both spatially and temporally.

DornerWorks was recently awarded a SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, US Navy SBIR N102-184: “Isolation Techniques for Untrusted Software”. This work will start early next year to extend the prototype ARINC 653 hypervisor to address safety, security, and performance. DornerWorks will partner with Galois, Inc. to apply the formal methods proof-checking and key Digital Safety Consultants to address the safety artifacts (using FAA flight certification as a guide). Additional safety platforms for future revisions of ARLX include medical and banking industries – both of which provide real-time and safety-critical products and services to the clients they serve.

“DornerWorks is intrigued by the intersection of software and hardware in safety-critical applications,” said Steven VanderLeest, Vice President of Research and Development at DornerWorks. “Our prototype ARINC 653 hypervisor leverages open source technology and thus gives us a vehicle to explore the current design space and study some of the most challenging questions in safety-critical domains such as aerospace and medical. Our work thus far, along with funding through the SBIR program, provides the opportunity to pursue three goals simultaneously: (a) evidence-based assurance of safety of operation, (b) evidence-based security of data, and (c) high system performance.”

“This SBIR provides the unique opportunity to combine DornerWorks’ extensive experience in safety-critical engineering and FAA certification requirements with Galois’ expertise in statically verifying safety-critical and security-critical software via theorem proving and model checking, towards the goal of a broadly available open source OS platform for avionics software and other applications where fault isolation is mandatory,” said Laura McKinney, CEO of Galois.

About Galois:
Galois’ mission is to create trustworthiness in critical systems, tackling challenging Information Assurance (IA) problems that have significant impact on society, in areas like privacy, security, and safety. Galois was founded as a company bringing together computer science researchers, mathematicians and engineers to provide a unique R&D capability for our clients. Since 1999, they have been applying the latest computer science research to solve hard problems for our clients in software security, safety, productivity, and performance. For more information visit: http://www.galois.com.

The ARLX software is available on the Xen website: http://xenbits.xensource.com.

DornerWorks is currently a registered Microchip Design Partner and began actively pursuing the Medical Design Partner Specialist designation after receiving their ISO 13485 certification earlier this year.

Prior to receiving their ISO medical certification, DornerWorks has enjoyed a successful track record in developing hardware and software products for the medical device community. DornerWorks’ client list continues to grow with companies who seek an embedded design firm that understands the rigors of developing a medical device, along with the regulatory and customer requirements that can affect budget and time to market. DornerWorks has helped many large medical companies bring their medical devices to market, with new projects slated to begin this quarter.

“We are thrilled to be included in Microchip’s very prestigious and exclusive Medical Design Partnership program,” said David Dorner, president of DornerWorks. “We are the third of only a few select companies on the globe to attain this recommendation. This is largely due to our extensive background in medical hardware electronics and software engineering, coupled with our investment in an ISO 13485 medical-quality certification we received, earlier this year. A primary goal at DornerWorks is to grow nationally out of our local reputation, particularly in the medical market. This landmark moves us closer to that goal, while offering Microchip and its customers the ability to grow in the medical market with a proven medical design partner.”

“Microchip provides medical specialists with co-branding opportunities, direct links to its internal medical design center and access to its corporate technical resources,” said Cheri Keller, senior manager of Microchip’s Design Partner Program “We are extremely pleased to have DornerWorks become a part of our exclusive group of Medical Design Partner Specialists. Their extensive knowledge of our product line and medical-device applications will enable our customers to make a smooth transition into the marketplace.”

Lance Hilbelink, Director of Quality Assurance at DornerWorks commented, “Achieving this certification is a welcome reward for a great deal of diligence in our day-to-day activities. It is a reflection of our commitment to high-quality work in all safety-critical markets, including the medical device industry.”

DornerWorks is a premier provider of electronic engineering services for the medical, aerospace, automotive, and industrial markets. Founded by David K. Dorner with one aerospace client in 2000, DornerWorks has grown to a staff of over 50 engineers and clients nationwide. Celebrating their 10th year in business, DornerWorks has been awarded one of the 2010 Michigan 50 Companies to Watch Award and the Bloomberg Business Weeks’ ICIC 2010 Inner City 100 Award, where they were ranked 26th nationally. DornerWorks in an AS 9100, ISO 9001, and ISO 13485 certified company.

In his new role as Regional Director, Fred will be responsible for generating new business, overseeing existing accounts, and management of DornerWorks East Side Branch. Fred brings over 26 years experience at Delphi Corporation where he held several senior management roles, including five in their medical systems division, along with key management roles in their automotive divisions. Fred holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering from Lawrence Technological University and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Detroit. Fred is an active member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and is a two time patent holder.

Contact Information:

Fred Dumsa, Regional Director
Fred.Dumsa@Dornerworks.com
Phone: 810-986-0575

Over a year in the making, TeamWorks is the brain child of Mike Varga and David Dorner, the Presidents and founders of Tandel Systems and DornerWorks, respectively. With over 20 years combined experience and an impressive staff of 125 employees spanning four states, TeamWorks leverages the expertise of both DornerWorks and Tandel Systems into a single source engineering firm for new and existing clients nationwide.

David Dorner had this to say about the recent announcement: “The TeamWorks Joint Venture is a great strategic move for our two parent companies, DornerWorks and Tandel Systems. Together we offer broader geographic presence, broader capabilities, and larger bandwidth to meet our customers’ engineering needs. Both of our companies have succeeded in bringing engineering excellence into the marketplace, and I am excited to expand this engineering excellence even further via TeamWorks Engineering.”

Mike Varga commented, saying “I’m very excited to be able to offer our industries the combined capabilities, capacity, financial strength, and geographic reach of TeamWorks Engineering; together we are best able to handle the growing demand for performance and quality driven engineering solutions.

DornerWorks and Tandel Systems will continue to provide the professional engineering services their customers have come to expect, while offering new and existing customers expanded services and support.”

About TeamWorks Engineering, LLC

TeamWorks Engineering LLC is a systems engineering company providing solutions in the areas of Hardware and Software Development, Program Management and Consulting, Test Systems, Operations, Logistics and Asset Management, FPGA Custom Logic Engineering, Independent Verification and Validation, and Electronic Systems Architecture. For more information about TeamWorks Engineering, LLC visit www.teamworksengineering.com.

About Tandel Systems, Inc.

Tandel Systems, Inc, headquartered in Oldsmar, FL, is a multi?faceted engineering services and solutions company tackling the nation’s toughest engineering challenges since 2001. Innovation, creativity, and perseverance are the backbone of their best?in?class engineering and management teams that solve complex, mission?critical problems in the Aerospace, Defense and Government sectors. For more information about Tandel Systems, please call (727) 530?1110 or visit www.tandelsystems.com.

About DornerWorks, Ltd.

DornerWorks is a premier provider of electronic engineering services for the aerospace, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, DornerWorks, Ltd is a rapidly growing company boasting some of the most sought?after projects in the industry today. Founded in 2000 by David Dorner, DornerWorks now ranks in the top 20% of embedded development team sizes in the U.S. For more information about DornerWorks, please call (616) 245?8369 or visit www.dornerworks.com.

AS9100 was first published by SAE – Society for Automotive Engineers in 1999. AS9100 resulted from cooperation between major aerospace corporations – American Aerospace Quality Group (AAQG) – with input from ANAB (fka: ANSI-RAB) and the Independent Association of Accredited Registrars (IAAR) to provide a single, unified quality management system for the aerospace industry. Many major aerospace manufacturers require suppliers to be AS9100 as a condition of doing business.

Lance Hilbelink, Director of Quality Assurance at DornerWorks, commented “Our quality management system simply documents the things we have been doing all along. We appreciate this recognition of the high-quality work that has always been a part of our day-to-day activity.”

DornerWorks is a premier provider of electronic engineering services for the aerospace, automotive, industrial, and medical markets. Founded by David K. Dorner with one aerospace client in 2000, DornerWorks has grown to a staff of over 50 and clients nationwide. Celebrating their 10th year in business, DornerWorks has been awarded one of the 2010 Michigan 50 Companies to Watch Award and the Bloomberg Business Weeks’ ICIC 2010 Inner City 100 Award, where they were ranked 26th nationally. DornerWorks is actively pursuing ISO13485 medical certification and expects to be certified Q3 of 2010.

The rankings for each company were announced at the Inner City 100 Awards Dinner on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 in Boston, MA. Winners attended a two-day event featuring seminars for Inner City 100 owners and managers at Harvard Business School, a reception at the Boston Public Library and an Awards Gala that drew more than 800 guests.

We are delighted to celebrate businesses like DornerWorks that are playing a critical role in revitalizing America’s urban communities. Through their achievements, the Inner City 100 winning companies exemplify America’s remarkable potential and the road to future economic recovery, Mary Kay Leonard, ICIC president and CEO. These extraordinary companies demonstrate the market possibilities that exist within our inner cities. If we can leverage these possibilities, we can create jobs, income and wealth for local residents and produce the next chapter of American innovation and opportunity.

DornerWorks has been an anomaly among many companies in Michigan and the country. The firm has managed to achieve strong results despite the difficult economic conditions, and continues to acquire clients and new growth opportunities.

DornerWorks is not immune to economic challenges, but our staff’s dedication and passion to servicing our clients with high quality engineering solutions has set us apart, said David Dorner, President of DornerWorks.

The list is proof of concept that doing business in an inner city area holds a distinct competitive advantage. ICIC has been studying the economic condition of the largest 100 American cities for more than a decade and is working to revitalize inner cities across the country.

DornerWorks is a premier electronic and software engineering firm specializing in the design of safety-critical systems for the aerospace, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. Founded in 2000 by David K. Dorner, DornerWorks has grown into one of the most sought after embedded engineering firms in the country. With a talented staff that includes PhD’s, patent holders, multi-degreed engineers, and a Six Sigma Black Belt, DornerWorks has the talent and experience to tackle the most demanding projects.

David had this to say when the awardees were announced, “We are honored to be awarded this recognition! And yet we are also humbled to share the spotlight with other competent companies. Our inclusion in this award is possible only from the contributions and hard work of everyone on our staff. I give all of them my thanks and congratulations as well.

As you look back at DornerWorks, we have been an anomaly in these trying economic times – we have been surprised with tremendous success. And as you watch DornerWorks into the future, it would be too bold of me to say that we will always be immune to economic challenges: I am sure we will have our share of trying times. But what sets us apart is our dedication and our passion to servicing the world with what we do best: engineering!”

“Now 300 strong, the second-stage businesses that comprise the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch have not only persevered through challenging times, but also found opportunities to grow,” says Penny Lewandowski, director of entrepreneurship development at the Edward Lowe Foundation. “They continue to hire and develop new markets for their products and services. Some have attracted significant amounts of venture capital, while others have been awarded prestigious federal grants. They are making a substantial difference in their communities ” and their industries. Our 2010 inductees are proof that entrepreneurs are, and always have been, the future of Michigan’s economy.”

Companies making it to the “Michigan 50 Companies to Watch” list are a remarkable group of second-stage companies. Defined as having 6 to 99 full-time-equivalent employees and generating $750,000 to $50 million in annual revenue or working capital from investors or grants, these companies form the back-bone of Michigan’s economy. Representing all regions of the state and a diverse range of industries, companies like DornerWorks are known for their exceptional entrepreneurial leadership, creation of innovation or use of innovation in creative ways, and their sustainable competitive advantage.

Winners were selected by Michigan-based judges from the banking, economic development, entrepreneurship development and venture capital communities.

"When people think of Michigan, they think automotive… But we have the skills and the people to do it.. it’s just getting them to come in. Getting things kicked off is the challenge, (but) we can do it all from concept to delivery." Read the full article: http://www.mibiz.com.

David Dorner, President of DornerWorks noted: “At DornerWorks we strive to employ the top talent and so I am very proud of Josh’s academic accomplishments! His efforts on the job are equally impressive: he has been technical lead on a very important and challenging project, and has demonstrated engineering wisdom beyond his years.”

Vinay Alofs, who recently left DornerWorks to continue his work abroad, was also named as (Winter) 2009 Outstanding Graduate Student in the MS-CIS program. Congratulations to Josh and Vinay on their amazing accomplishments!

After working for seven years at Smiths Aerospace, David founded DornerWorks in 2000. Under his leadership, DornerWorks has grown rapidly, doubling in size several times. David’s entrepreneurial spirit and skills have been recognized by the Grand Rapids Business Journal with the “40 Under Forty Business Leaders” Award in 2007 and he was the inaugural recipient of the Calvin College MBA Horizon Award, which recognizes outstanding alumni business professionals. David is also the founder and chair of the IEEE West Michigan Consultants Network.

David attributes part of his success to the resources of the IEEE West Michigan Consultants Network.

For more information on this lecture, contact the IEEE Coastal Los Angeles Section

A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt is a professional who applies Six Sigma philosophies and principles, including supporting systems and tools in a variety of business situations. A Black Belt demonstrates team leadership and manages team dynamics in all aspects of the DMAIC model (define, measure, analyze, improve, control), understands lean enterprise concepts and uses tools to identify non-value-added activities.

Gary is a Manufacturing and Quality Engineer with DornerWorks, holds a BSEET from DeVry University, and has been working towards this accomplishment for the past three years.

David Dorner, President of DornerWorks, had this to say, “I’m very excited and honored to have DornerWorks nominated for the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch Award. We are doing everything we can to bring high tech jobs to Michigan and are thrilled to be recognized by this nomination. But the real gratification for me comes from seeing my passion for engineering blossom into a company with far more capabilities than I ever dreamed possible back when it was just me in my basement!”

Nominees will be notified mid-February and an awards ceremony will be held in the Lansing Center, Lansing Michigan on April 29, 2010. For more information go to www.MichiganCelebrates.biz

The Digital Avionics Systems Conference held in Orlando Florida, provides a forum for the exchange of new knowledge in digital avionics among professionals and students in the fields of commercial, military, and general aviation and space applications. It serves the needs and professional interests of AIAA and IEEE members and promotes in a public environment their contributions and achievements in the arts, sciences, and technology of aeronautics and astronautics. For more information go to dasconline.org

Dr. Vanderleest is Vice President of Research & Development at DornerWorks and Professor and Chair of Engineering at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mr. Buter began his career at DornerWorks in 2006 after graduating the same year with a BSC degree from Calvin College. “We wrote our paper on applying Agile software principles to the aerospace domain because it is an area a number of DornerWorks engineers have experience, and it has a proven record of providing a higher quality product within a smaller budget and schedule than a traditional approach,” said Mr. Buter.