Kitware was recently selected as a Top Small Company Workplace by Inc. magazine and nonprofit organization, Winning Workplaces. Each year, the nation's top 50 small and mid-sized company work environments are included in Inc.'s June issue. Kitware's open source business model and unique culture won a spot among the 2011 winners. You can view the official announcement on Inc. Magazine's web site. 

"We are honored to be recognized as one of this year's Top Small Company Workplaces," said Will Schroeder, CEO of Kitware. "Making this list affirms that we have an empowered, collaborative culture, and that our team is solving some of the world's most challenging technology problems while having lots of fun along the way."

Kitware held its first Tech Valley Talk in May, co-hosted with Vicarious Visions, a video and computer game development company best known for their work on Guitar Hero. The talk focused on Agile Programming Practices, and Nicholas Ruepp of Vicarious Visions and Bill Hoffman of Kitware discussed how agile practices are implemented at each of their companies. Nicholas highlighted how Vicarious Visions uses agile practices to maintain a consistent level of effort during production, rather than the excessive swings often experienced with a waterfall process. Bill discussed how Kitware has implemented agile processes, starting from a key text and adapting the methodologies to fit our needs at Kitware. Following the presentations was an engaging Q&A session. Kitware plans to host these events quarterly to engage the growing technology community in upstate New York.

On May 7th, members of the Kitware team in North Carolina headed out on a trip to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro.   

The NC Zoo is divided by continent into North America and Africa. The first half of the day was spent exploring the Africa loop. Naturally, the favorites there were the elephants, giraffes, baboons, chimps and gorillas. Speaking of gorillas, for the first time in 22 years, the zoo is expecting a baby gorilla! After a picnic at Hippo Beach, those with enough energy walked the North America section. There the polar bears, otters, and seals stole the show. For a collections of pictures from the day, see our blog post.  

On Thursday, May 19^th, 28 Kitware employees participated in the CDPHP Corporate Workforce Challenge, a 3.5-mile race through downtown Albany. Threats of thunderstorms did little to discourage the Kitware team, as six members completed the race in less than 30 minutes (compared to three in 2010).  For more results and pictures, see our blog post . 

Not to be outdone by runners, the next day, May 20^th, 23 Kitware employees participated in the Saratoga Healthy Transportation Network's "Bike to Work Day" as part of National Bike Month. Kitware won the Highest Percentage (groups > 10) category for having 33% of the organization ride in. For more details and pictures, see our blog post.