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Entrepreneurs Honored

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Five entrepreneurs were honored earlier this month at the annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for Orange County and the desert cities region. The event, held at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach, picked executives in five categories: life sciences and healthcare; turnaround; business services; retail, manufacturing and distribution; and technology. The selecting judges were a combination of past award winners, investors and local businesspeople. Honorees are invited to Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year National Awards Gala, set for November in Palm Springs.

Local honorees:

• Ron Andrews, chief executive of Clarient Inc. Andrews has been with the Aliso Viejo-based company since 2004 and oversaw its transformation from a microscope maker to a provider of cancer diagnostic services. Clarient was bought by a unit of General Electric Co. late last year.

• Rajesh Shrotriya, chief executive of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. Shrotriya has headed Spectrum for nearly a decade and recently moved the company’s headquarters from Irvine to the Las Vegas area. He previously spent 18 years with New York’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and has overseen Spectrum’s shift from neurology to cancer drugs.

• Praful Kulkarni, founder and chief executive of gkkworks. The Newport Beach-based architecture firm provides design, construction management and development services and has several offices in the western U.S. as well as one in New York. Last fall, gkkworks was No. 12 on the Business Journal’s list of architecture firms, which ranks the county’s top firms by local billings.

• Puneet Nanda, chief executive of Dr. Fresh Inc. The Buena Park-based company makes toothbrushes, mouthwash, dental floss, hand sanitizers and other goods. Nanda, whose reputation as a flirt in college led to the nickname Dr. Fresh, took over the family business in the early 1990s and brought the company to OC a decade later.

• Richard Heard, president of Insight Investments LLC. Heard has been with the Orange-based technology services provider since its start in 1987.

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