Release Details

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 2003--

Chemical Engineering magazine honors Dr. Evans for his leadership in establishing AspenTech as a strategic supplier to the world's major process manufacturing companies

Aspen Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AZPN) today announced that Chairman and Founder Lawrence B. (Larry) Evans has received the 2002 Award for Personal Achievement in Chemical Engineering from Chemical Engineering magazine. The biennial award, conferred since 1968, recognizes notable accomplishments in the use of chemical engineering principles to solve industrial, community or governmental problems.

"I am honored to receive this award," said Dr. Evans. "The award is a recognition of the contribution that AspenTech has made to the process industries since we established the company in 1981. By consistently creating value for its customers using innovative technologies, AspenTech has become a strategic supplier to the world's leading process companies."

Dr. Evans has devoted his career to improving process manufacturing companies' competitive advantage by optimizing their engineering and manufacturing/supply chain processes. Today, AspenTech saves process manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars per year with solutions that improve their efficiency and profitability.

Dr. Evans began his career as a chemical engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s, and served as a consultant in computer-aided process design and control. In 1976, he became the principal investigator for the Advanced System for Process Engineering (ASPEN) Project at MIT. The project's goal was to discover an efficient, consistent way to evaluate synthetic fuel processes. When the project ended in 1981, Dr. Evans and his team founded AspenTech to commercialize their solutions for process optimization. Today, these solutions are used by 1,200 process companies worldwide, including 46 of the top 50 chemical companies.

Dr. Evans served as Chairman and CEO of AspenTech from 1981 through September 2002, and is continuing in his capacity as a full-time chairman today. In addition to this award, he has received several other honors in recent years. In 2001, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and cited for "leadership in the development and application of integrated systems for modeling, simulation and optimization of industrial chemical processes". In 1999, he was named one of seven heroes of U.S. manufacturing by Fortune magazine, and he received the Chemical Engineering Practice Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChe).

"I am grateful to have had the chance to bridge the gap between academia and business in my career, especially since many people never have that opportunity," said Dr. Evans. "Since I entered the industry, the ability to model complex processes has become increasingly important in the way process manufacturers run their businesses. As competitive demands have increased, modeling has expanded beyond just design, to now become the foundation of operating an efficient manufacturing process."

Dr. Evans holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and an M.S.E. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

About the Award for Personal Achievement in Chemical Engineering

Chemical Engineering magazine's Award for Personal Achievement honors individuals who have distinguished themselves in their chemical engineering careers. Early in a given award year, Chemical Engineering announces the competition and requests nominations from readers. A Board of Judges consisting of chemical engineering professors determines the final winners. Working independently of each other, each judge assigns a numerical weighting to each nominee. The publication then combines the scores to determine overall rankings. Chemical Engineering magazine is published by Chemical Week Associates, New York, N.Y.

About AspenTech

Aspen Technology, Inc. is a leading supplier of enterprise software to the process industries, enabling its customers to increase their margins and optimize their business performance. AspenTech's engineering solutions, including Hyprotech's technologies, help companies design and improve their plants and processes, maximizing returns throughout their operational life. AspenTech's manufacturing/supply chain solutions allow companies to run their plants and supply chains more profitably, from customer demand through to the delivery of the finished products. Over 1,200 leading companies rely on AspenTech's software every day to drive improvements across their most important engineering and operational processes. AspenTech's customers include: Air Liquide, Aventis, Bayer, BASF, BP, ChevronTexaco, Dow Chemical, DuPont, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Lyondell Equistar, Merck, Mitsubishi Chemical, Shell, Southern Company, TXU Energy and Unilever. For more information, visit www.aspentech.com.

Certain paragraphs of this press release contain forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For this purpose, any statement using the term "will," "should," "could," "anticipates," "believes" or a comparable term is a forward-looking statement. Actual results may vary significantly from AspenTech's expectations based on a number of risks and uncertainties, including: AspenTech's lengthy sales cycle which makes it difficult to predict quarterly operating results; fluctuations in AspenTech's quarterly operating results; AspenTech's dependence on customers in the cyclical chemicals, petrochemicals and petroleum industries; AspenTech's need to hire additional qualified personnel and its dependence on key current employees; intense competition; AspenTech's dependence on systems integrators and other strategic partners; changes in the market for e-business solutions for AspenTech's customers; increased governmental regulation and taxation of e-commerce and the Internet; information security and privacy concerns relating to e-commerce; and other risk factors described from time to time in AspenTech's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AspenTech cannot guarantee any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements. Moreover, neither AspenTech nor anyone else assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of any forward-looking statements. AspenTech undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release.

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