Entrepreneur Award

2012 Recipient:

Nancy Scally

Nancy Scally grew up on the family farm and ranch in Western Kansas and graduated in 1983 from K-State with a degree in dietetics. Today, she owns an electrical engineering company called Colorado Engineering Inc., in Colorado Springs.

Colorado Engineering has 28 employees and more than $5 million in annual revenue. Scally has created an environment for engineering quality and productivity as well as a model for employee retention. She recently purchased a 40,000 square-foot building for future growth of CEI.

The company develops high-end electronics systems for the Department of Defense. Currently the company is designing, fabricating, testing and integrating a pulsed Doppler radar for the Air Force's Global Hawk Unmanned Air Vehicle program.

In 2011, Scally received the Small Business Administration Tibbetts award for exemplifying the best in the small innovative business research programs. The company's Mentor Protégé program received the Department of Defense's Nunn-Perry Award.

Before starting her company, Scally managed nutrition care for the sick and elderly and managed and operated nine retail food service businesses.