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  Earl J. Bass e-Business Achievement Award
Honoring Current Contributions that Advance E-Business Message Development

Purpose: To recognize outstanding achievements and leadership in support of the development and use of electronic data interchange (EDI) standards and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages over the past year.

Earl J. Bass, known by all as "Buddy," was the principal author of the first set of EDI standards manuals based on input from transportation industry work groups. He designed the format and specified the content of those documents with a clear path toward continuous update. Hailed as one of the "founding shapers of EDI," Buddy's initial assignment was to ensure that the work group developed a comprehensive and understandable manual. That first publication, in July of 1975, created without assistance from computer automation and completed over three months, included forty-five transaction sets, sixty-eight segments, and 189 data elements.

As a technologist, perhaps Buddy's most significant contribution to EDI is the simple, elegant, coded syntax notes used to unambiguously describe the conditional requirements of data elements within a segment. Buddy coined a significant amount of EDI terminology, such as the terms 'reference designator' and 'requirement designator' as well as the use of the words 'mandatory,' 'conditional,' and 'optional.'

Buddy was a member of the U.S. Joint EDI committee that aligned the segment and data element directories of several standard setting organizations, including that original transportation focus, the ASC X12 community -- primarily focused on general business applications, along with the grocery and warehousing industries. As chair of ASC X12, Buddy was instrumental in securing the U.S. role within the international EDI community under ASC X12's control.

As he accepted DISA's Edward A. Guilbert Award in 1995, Mr. Bass expressed an essential tenet of the standards setting process: "...leave your corporate hat at home and wear your industry hat; come to negotiate and compromise and don't push your own company's systems and procedures-that way we'll end up with the best standards."

2008 Presentation

The Earl J. Bass e-Business Achievement Award will be presented at the ASC X12 Fall 2008 meeting in Pittsburgh.

Nomination Process

Professionals who have made outstanding achievements and shown leadership in support of the development and use of electronic data interchange (EDI) standards and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages over the past year are eligible candidates for the award. Nominations must be received no later than June 13, 2008.

The nomination application must include the following items:

• Name of nominee, current title and contact information (please include business address, phone, FAX and email)
• Information on the nominee's professional career, as it relates to significant achievements over the past year in e-business message development
• A 100-200 word biographical statement of the individual's eligibility for the award
• A brief statement from the sponsor in support of the candidate's accomplishments
• Sponsor's name, title, organization and contact information

Bass Award Recipients

2007	Don Bechtel
2006	June Arnold Lisa Shreve