Statewide honors for a Roanoke Company that didn’t exist six years ago: the Small Business Administration has named four executives of Interactive Achievement as Virginia Small Business Persons of the Year. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more on a company that has quickly created a significant presence in Virginia public schools.

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Interactive Achievement creates computer programs that help teachers assess student knowledge on a continuing basis. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more on how its “onTRAC” program works in school.

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Here is the full Interactive Achievement news release:

Interactive Achievement Executives named
2012 Virginia Small Business Persons of the Year

ROANOKE, Va. (March 15, 2012) – Interactive Achievement, the company known for software that is used in the majority of Virginia school systems to assess students’ Standards of Learning progress, is wowing business leaders and government officials yet again.  The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Richmond District Office’s independent panel of judges has chosen four executives at the company as Small Business Persons of the Year for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“SBA’s Small Business Week awards are among the most prestigious awards in the nation recognizing small business success,” said Jayne Armstrong, District Director for the SBA.  “The SBA is honored to recognize a small business like Interactive Achievement for its many contributions to Virginia’s economy.”

Jonathan L. Hagmaier, C.E.O.; Mary V. Hagmaier, Director of Corporate Relations; Matthew Muller, Solutions Architect, and Jacob E. Gibson, VP of Business Development will be among the nine people receiving awards from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Richmond District Office, at the Small Business Awards Luncheon in Richmond on Friday, May 18. As the winner of the state award, Interactive Achievement will represent Virginia in the 2012 National Small Business Person of the Year competition. The winner of the national award will be announced in Washington, D.C., during the May 20-22 observance of National Small Business Week.

“This is truly an honor for Interactive Achievement,” said Jonathan Hagmaier.  “We had a vision that teachers should be able to access data immediately so they could make adjustments to improve the learning experience for their students.  Here we are six years later and thousands of teachers are using our solution to help students.  This award validates the tireless efforts of our entire team.”

This award follows quickly on the heels of regional recognition by the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce and Roanoke Regional Small Business Development Center, which named  Interactive Achievement the 2011 Small Business of the Year.