Clean and Mean

Austin CEO named E&Y's Entrepreneur of the Year for region

Ernst & Young announced on June 6 that Jeff Ziegler, CEO of Austin-based TechTurn, was the regional Entrepreneur of the Year winner. Ziegler's TechTurn collects, recycles, refurbishes, and remarkets technology products from large organizations to make a profit and minimize impact to the environment.

TechTurn is a poster child for Austin's developing clean technology cluster. The Wall Street Journal reported that Austin even outpaces the vaunted Silicon Valley in this burgeoning area. So TechTurn's success seems particularly appropos.

According to TechTurn, 300 of the Fortune 500 send their used technology to the company to be refurbed and resold around the world. As regional winner, Ziegler is now eligible to compete for the national E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award. .:.

10-Gallon Headquarters

Big business thrives deep in the heart of Texas

Texas is home to some of the biggest companies on the planet. And the vast majority of the more than 100 Fortune 1000 companies are concentrated in the Texas Triangle. Below is a list of 22 firms that fall within 200 largest public companies in the U.S. (Clicking on a company will take you to a list of their annual reports filed with the SEC going as far back as 1994.)

#2 Exxon Mobil [Irving]
#5 ConocoPhillips [Houston]
#16 Valero Energy Corp [San Antonio]
#27 AT&T [San Antonio]
#30 Marathon Oil [Houston]
#34 Dell Inc. [Round Rock]
#65 Sysco Corp [Houston]
#101 AMR Corp [Fort Worth]
#103 Plains All American Pipeline [Houston]
#106 Lyondell Chemical [Houston]
#111 Electronic Data Systems [Plano]
#116 J.C. Penney [Plano]
#128 Tesoro [San Antonio]
#137 Kimberly-Clark [Irving]
#155 D.R. Horton [Fort Worth]
#157 Burlington Northern Santa Fe [Fort Worth]
#162 Texas Instruments [Dallas]
#174 Fluor [Irving]
#177 Enterprise GP Holdings [Houston]
#180 USAA [San Antonio]
#181 Waste Management [Houston]
#186 Continental Airlines [Houston]

In addition to these, there are scores of other giant companies in the Texas Triangle. In fact, 79 other Fortune 1000 firms are at home inside the Texas Three-Step. .:.

Ab Ovo

S.A. startup gets national attention

A new Web 2.0 venture is launching from San Antonio. Called Incuby, the site seeks to create a community where inventors can display their inventions to the general public, entrepreneurs, and investors.

According to TechCrunch.com, "the team behind Incuby have toured the United States meeting with different inventor groups. They found that inventors are tired of the high costs associated with travelling and presenting at trade shows and are ready for 'a place of their own on the web.'"

Incuby will move into a closed beta test in coming weeks, but is currently in development. However, being featured by the massively popular and influential TechCrunch.com gives the company a huge initial lift. .:.