It is the time of year when we begin to discuss potential nominees for Via Satellite’s Satellite Executive of the Year award, and it already is apparent that there will be no shortage of candidates.

Via Satellite has honored the most outstanding industry executive of the prior year as its Satellite Executive of the Year since 1988, when PanAmSat Founder Rene Anselmo was the first recipient. Since then, more than 20 industry visionaries have been honored for making a durable contribution to the global satellite markets, technologies, business practices, services innovations or any combination of these contributions.

The difficult part of the process always is identifying the most worthy nominees to include in the February issue of Via Satellite and then selecting one of the nominees as the Satellite Executive of the Year 2008.

But in the process of selecting the 2007 winner, we were reminded that even with the effort and thought the editorial committee puts into the selection process, sometimes worthy nominees are brought to our attention by the industry itself.

The 2007 Satellite Executives of the Year were officials from Inmarsat, Intelsat and SES who were nominated for their efforts in leading the satellite industry’s fight to retain exclusive use of C-band spectrum. While we gave the C-band effort plenty of coverage during the year, the idea of singling out any of the satellite sector executives behind the effort as potential Satellite Executives of the Year did not cross our minds.

It would have been a gross oversight on our part. Fortunately, we received suggestions from separate parties nominating C-band team members, and once we discussed the breadth and difficulty of their work and its importance to the satellite industry as a whole, there was no doubt that Kengi Chen of Inmarsat, Kalpak Gude of Intelsat and John Lothian of SES were the proper honorees.

We always have invited outside nominations for the Satellite Executive of the Year award, and last year’s situation reminded us how crucial these contributions can be.

Nominations for Via Satellite’s Satellite Executive of the Year 2008 can be submitted until Nov. 14. As always, we would like remind everyone that the award is based on an executive’s major achievements, how they helped a company and how the candidate contributed to the satellite industry as a whole during the past calendar year.

Nominees can be submitted at www.satellitetoday.com/nomination/SEY2008.html, and e-mails can be submitted to [email protected].

The nominees for the Satellite Executive of the Year 2008 will be profiled in the February issue of Via Satellite, and the winner will be featured in the March issue and honored at SATELLITE 2009 in Washington.

We look forward to your contributions to the process of selecting the Satellite Executive of the Year 2008 and look forward to seeing you at SATELLITE 2009.