Keith Duncan, Ph.D., president and CEO of Consult Dynamics, Inc. – DCANet, has been named the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce’s 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year. Duncan will receive this prestigious award at the Chamber’s annual Entrepreneur Award’s Dinner on Wednesday, May 16, 2001, the event begins at 5:00 p.m. with a reception; dinner follows at 6:00 p.m. For more information, please see page five or call John McKay, vice president, business development, at (302) 368-5700, email mckayj@ncccc.com.

Duncan is an innovative entrepreneur who embodies all of the qualities of success, both as a business owner and as an individual. He is a local pioneer in the field of Internet services and infrastructure. Since entering the business in 1994, Duncan has resisted the temptation to grow too fast. Instead, he has focused on steady growth, increasing revenues approximately 20 percent each year; leading a profitable venture with a social conscience; and providing real technical innovation and outstanding customer service.

In this age of boom and bust in the dot-com world, Duncan’s insightful eye toward the future business opportunities of the Internet has shown like a beacon. In fact, his company predated the dot-coms. With Duncan’s futuristic thinking guiding DCANet, it was the first Internet Service Provider in Delaware to offer DSL products. He has also created a competitive local exchange telephone carrier D-Tel, LLC, enabling Consult Dynamics to deploy converged data and telecom network service to the regional market. These are just two examples of how the Company reinvests heavily in its infrastructure and innovative technologies. Duncan’s purposeful and managed growth philosophies make him a new economy entrepreneur with an old economy perspective.

His eclectic educational background has influenced Duncan’s perspective on his high-tech business. His undergraduate degree is in the humanities and his master’s degree is in German Philosophy, language and culture. As a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, Duncan’s dissertation studied how technical support personnel provided help to end-users of computer technology. He believes that his well-rounded nature, developed through his liberal arts education, enables him to see connections that others might miss.

While still at Penn completing his studies, Duncan, along with family members, started consult Dynamics, Inc. Since then, family members have played key roles in the Company and its well-known DCANet division.

As with many entrepreneurs, effective, targeted networking plays an important role in the success of their ventures. Duncan is certainly no exception. Business connections made while a student at Penn helped him to grow the business into the Philadelphia market. In addition to many significant Delaware customers, including Wilmington College, Artisans’ Bank and the City of Wilmington, the Company has key relationships with the University of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Drexel University and Temple University. In fact, Duncan helped the New Castle County Chamber enter cyberspace very early on and has provided valuable counsel to the Chamber in his area of expertise.

Duncan’s community involvement in the region is prolific. He strongly believes that, as more people move online, the processes for interacting socially, conducting government and providing social services will be reinvented. Acting on his conviction, Duncan has provided generous donations of services and expertise to many local nonprofit organizations working the areas of social services, the arts and education. In Philadelphia, he was a major contributor to the former LibertyNet Internet community services network. The network was sold to a private company in 1999, but Duncan continues to move forward with the mission of LibertyNet with DCANet’s launch of DelawareValley.org, a community service-based Web portal. Its mission is to provide Internet technology transfer to communities and organizations less likely to have exposure to these new technologies. A fundamental principle of DelawareValley.org is that all citizens in the Delaware Valley should have access to Internet technologies.

As Duncan prepares to move his company to a new 10,000 square-foot building in Wilmington, he continues to guide the Company with a steady focus on future technology trends while building upon his impressive track record as a successful entrepreneur and caring corporate citizen.