ASI® Announces Winners of 2007 Counselor Awards

TREVOSE, PA – July 11, 2007 – Advertising Specialty Institute, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today the winners of the 2007 Counselor Awards, as selected by Counselor magazine.

The annual awards recognize outstanding individuals in seven categories who represent some of the brightest talent in the advertising specialty industry and also announce the Top 40 Distributors and Top 40 Suppliers rankings – the largest companies in the industry based upon 2006 revenue. 

“Congratulations to this year’s winners,” said Melinda Ligos, Editor-in-Chief for Counselor magazine.  “The Counselor Awards honor individuals who develop profitable ideas, deploy new business strategies, and contribute to the greater good through their humanitarian efforts.”    

The winners of the 2007 Counselor Awards are: 

Person of the Year – Paul Lage, President, Norwood Promotional Products
International Person of the Year – Ray Titus, President, EmbroidMe
Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year – Jack Levine, President and CEO, CorpLogoWare
Supplier Entrepreneur of the Year – Dolly Duffy and Dan Fangman, Owners, Atchison Products Inc.
Counselor Woman of Distinction – Mary Ann Farmer, President and CEO, Magna-Tel
Bess Cohn Humanitarian Award – Cheryl Brungardt, Owner, Thank Em Promotions
Marvin Spike Lifetime Achievement Award – Bob Waldorf, Founder and Former CEO, Idea Man, Inc.

The highly-anticipated Counselor “Person of the Year” award was presented to Paul Lage, President of Top 40 supplier Norwood Promotional Products. 

“When I joined ASI four years ago, Norwood’s distributor customers were leaving because their calendar orders were not being shipped, customer service was suffering, and it was losing respect as a large supplier,” said Timothy M. Andrews, President and CEO for ASI.  “Paul Lage joined as president in 2006 and is addressing the problems and has instilled a spirit of positive collaboration among staff and clients that is growing Norwood.”

“Real-world experiences like those from Paul Lage and all of the Counselor Awards winners allow us to share innovative ideas, new directions and best practices that we can all learn from to grow our businesses,” Andrews said.  “Ray Titus, president of EmbroidMe and the Counselor ‘International Person of the Year’ has grown franchises profitably in countries outside North America and Cheryl Brungardt, owner of Thank Em Promotions and the Bess Cohn Humanitarian Award winner, reminds us about the importance of doing good while being successful.” 

To learn more about each of the seven dynamic winners of the 2007 Counselor Awards, view the complete Top 40 Distributors and Top 40 Suppliers rankings, and see photos from the awards event, visit www.asicentral.com/counselorawards. 

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of 24,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 20,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 750,000 ad specialties, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit www.asicentral.com.