New York, September 4, 2001 - BiZBash Idea Center, www.bizbash.com, the first comprehensive media outlet targeted to event planning and business entertaining professionals, announced today that Event Solutions Magazine, the national magazine for event professionals, selected Richard Aaron, president of BiZBash, for its prestigious Visionary Award. The presentation took place at the Event Solution Expo 2001 in St. Louis. The Visionary Award is presented to an individual who exhibits overall vision for the event industry and makes a major contribution to its growth and improvement.

This is the second major industry award presented to Aaron in the past two months. In July 2001, Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the global authority and resource for the meeting industry, named Aaron, CMP, CSEP, as the recipient of the 2001 Meeting Professional Award-International Planner category at the opening general session of its 2001 World Education Congress in Las Vegas.

Before joining BiZBash.com, Richard was president of the meeting and events division of Mallory Factor Inc., where he produced thousands of events nationwide for Fortune 100 corporations and associations with clients including Sony, IBM, Sun, GE, Dell Computers and Siemens. As a speaker and lecturer, he is affiliated with the hospitality and event programs at both New York University and George Washington University. Richard is a well-known event industry visionary, having served for the past three years as founding chairman of the event industry SEARCH Foundation (Special Event Aid and Response for Care and Hope). In addition to his career in producing thousands of innovative corporate events at Mallory Factor, Richard was the founding president of the International Special Events Society of New York, a member of the board of directors of MPI International and on the advisory boards of Special Events Magazine and George Washington University's event program. Richard is an adjunct professor in event marketing at New York University's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality.

In 1999 he was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the New York Chapter International Special Event Foundation (ISEF), and he was named one of the 25 Most Influential Professionals by Meeting News Magazine in 1998.

The BiZBash Idea Center, www.bizbash.com, is a free online and offline resource center for special events and business entertaining professionals that was created to fill a real need: to find localized "nooks and crannies" information to help in producing effective events. BiZBash is the most extensive database of the best event resources with more than 5,000 resources--caterers, DJs, florists, cookie makers--and has pages of industry gossip, personality profiles and coverage of all types of parties and events.