(Aspen Technology, Inc., Burlington, MA, www.aspentec.com) A leading provider of smart manufacturing and supply chain management software and services for the process industries, which includes chemicals, metals and minerals, pulp and paper, electric power and consumer packaged goods. Aspen was founded in 1981 to commercialize technology developed by the Advanced System for Process Engineering (ASPEN) at MIT. From 1976 to 1981, the ASPEN project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and a group of more than 50 industrial participants, after which it went public.