Company: GeoLearning, Inc., West Des Moines, Iowa
Company Description: GeoLearning is the leading provider of Managed Learning Services and hosted learning platforms, having been chosen by more than 350 organizations around the world to manage learning and development. Named to the 2004 Inc. 500, GeoLearning is one of the fastest growing private companies in America.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Company

Nomination Title: GeoLearning - a Pioneer of ASP-Hosted Training

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in 2004 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

GeoLearning, Inc. is the leading provider of ASP-hosted human capital
management and development solutions, headquartered in West Des Moines,
Iowa. Unlike traditional software providers, GeoLearning offers hosted training
solutions that require no installation, fewer IT resources, and shorter deployment
times which ultimately provides lower cost to the customer.

Since their establishment in 1997, GeoLearning has grown from a two-person shop
in the basement of owners Frank and Linda Russell to an international
organization with more than 150 employees. Throughout the past four years
GeoLearning has experienced an average annual growth rate of 100.4%, growing
402% from 2000-2003.

In 2001, GeoLearning was ranked among the industry's leading companies in an e-
learning customer satisfaction study published in U.S. News & World Report. In
this study GeoLearning was ranked second out of 24 learning management
system companies and had a composite customer satisfaction score of 9.4 out of
10. TrainingOutsourcing.com selected GeoLearning to their list of Top 20
Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry. In 2003 GeoLearning was voted
the ‘best learning management system’ by the readers of Training Magazine in the
publication’s inaugural Achieving Performance eXcellence Awards. Recent
recognition includes GeoLearning being named on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-
growing private companies.

GeoLearning can attribute much of its success to the state-of-the-art
infrastructure of its learning management systems and unsurpassed security features. Some of GeoLearning’s ever-expanding client-base, which currently surpasses 350, includes 30 government agencies. President George W. Bush’s Management
Agenda supports an e-Training Initiative to simplify and unify e-training services.
GeoLearning created the Gov Online Learning Center to provide one-stop access
to e-training services for more than 1.8 million people employed by the federal
government, making it the e-learning industry’s largest implementation. In
addition, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services awarded GeoLearning a $1.26 million contract solution to manage the training and development of their over 66,000 employees. GeoLearning’s learning management platform was also
selected to manage training for 145,000 First Responders in the State of New
Jersey. This $2.56 million 3-year contract awarded to GeoLearning will manage
First Responder training for police, fire and emergency personnel throughout the
state.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]:

http://www.geolearning.com/news/dsp_article.cfm?NewsID=102
http://www.geolearning.com/news/dsp_article.cfm?NewsID=39
http://www.geolearning.com/news/dsp_article.cfm?NewsID=123
http://www.geolearning.com/news/dsp_article.cfm?NewsID=138

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

CEO Frank Russell has more than 20 years of experience in the training and
development field.

Prior to founding GeoLearning, he was president and co-founder of Excellence in
Training Corporation, a leading producer of video-based training. Russell’s
extensive experience in the computer-based training field includes research at the
Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois where the first
Internet browser was invented. He worked for Control Data Corporation in the late 1970s with the Plato System. He has also been the head of training for the State of Iowa.

Russell holds a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University and a master’s
degree from the University of Illinois.