NW/BCA Board Member Aric Wood Named to Business Journal's 40 Under 40

March 2, 2009 | Posted in Media coverage

PORTLAND, Ore. - Aric Wood, chief executive officer of XPLANE - a global information design consultancy - and is named to the Portland Business Journal's 40 Under 40 for 2009. The award is based on leadership in business, local, regional and national recognition, community and civic involvement and a general recommendation of the nominee.

"I'm honored and humbled to receive this recognition from the Portland Business Journal," said Wood. "Success has come from a great collaboration between XPLANE employees, our customers, and the great partnerships we have in the Portland community."

Since joining XPLANE in 2004, Wood, 38, has grown the company to include three offices: Portland, St. Louis and Madrid, Spain. The company has grown 476% since that time, and has been ranked on the Inc. 5,000 and Portland Business Journal's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies for the past two years. Despite an economic downturn the company still experienced 14% growth in 2008 and Wood remains a steady leader throughout even the most challenging of times.

Wood was responsible for relocating the company's headquarters to Portland in 2005, and helped to bring the Business Volunteers for the Arts program to Portland through Northwest Business for Culture & the Arts where he serves on the Board of Directors.

Wood will be recognized by the Portland Business Journal at an awards reception on April 2 at Portland's Gerding Theater at the Armory. He'll also be included in the paper's special 40 Under 40 insert that will come out in the April 3 issue.

With an innovative visual, multidisciplinary methodology, XPLANE is unique because it applies both left and right-brained approaches to develop fresh solutions to challenging communication problems. This approach accelerates understanding, which drives actions and results. Companies have hired XPLANE to motivate employees, drive sales, convince decision makers and improve processes.