Neil Henderson, President and founder of Accelerated Technology, Inc. says “The typical high tech entrepreneur is reared in the northeast or Silicon Valley. My attachment to a government contracting organization in San Diego led me to the Gulf Coast through a consulting contract. So, lifestyle and living choice were my primary reasons for ending up here.”
Accelerated Technology, Inc., an Inc. Magazine 500 Company, is headquartered in Mobile, Alabama with sales offices and distributors worldwide. Accelerated Technology Inc., which was bought in 2002 by Oregon-based Mentor Graphics, has two distinct product lines, code|labTM, an embedded software development suite and Nucleus®, a royalty-free real-time operating system.
Henderson noted that once he started his business he found that the University of South Alabama was not only a great place to get high tech talent, it was a great place to leverage the marketing experience necessary to launch an international business. Mentor Graphics became the anchor tenant at the University of South Alabama’s Technology and Research Park. The Park was actually Henderson’s brain child, and he worked with the university and Chamber officials to make it a reality. Mentor Graphics moved into the first building in the Park in 2003.
The pairing of medicine and high tech has been ongoing for years and has yet to see its greatest level of growth. The University of South Alabama and its extensive medical education and hospital network provide opportunities for unparalleled efforts in devices for furthering medical care. The opportunity to tap the high tech know how, medical wherewithal and the thriving life style community makes Mobile and the Gulf Coast a potential Mecca for medical device research and development.
Mentor Graphics has extensive experience in semiconductor development and verification along with extensive experience in embedded software. By providing an interface between these technologies and the medical field there are innumerable opportunities to combine the disciplines of high tech and healthcare in a way that it has not been done before in any other location. Neil Henderson remains as the General Manager of the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics.