RELEASED: June 20, 2006 

(SIOUX FALLS, SD) --- BrightPlanet Corporation has named Thomas Tiahrt to be its first Chief Scientist.  Tiahrt’s new role is to promote research and innovation in the company’s emerging emphasis on processing and indexing of semantic-rich, semi-structured data, as well as other advanced technologies.

“The new position of Chief Scientist is a natural step in BrightPlanet’s growth and prominence as a technology leader,” said Duncan Witte, BrightPlanet’s President and COO.  “Tom is well-deserving to inaugurate this position given his exceptional record in information retrieval technology, his innovation, and his solid foundation in computer science theory and principles.”

Mr. Tiahrt’s next area of emphasis is engineering and design around BrightPlanet’s eXtensible Semantic Data Model (XSDM) initiative and its associated processing and indexing via the XSD Engine.

“Tom uniquely blends keen insights in structured and unstructured database technology with a Gila monster-grip for wringing out all possible efficiencies,” Michael K. Bergman, BrightPlanet’s CTO said.  “His unique perspective is essential as we look to develop workable technologies for managing metadata and semi-structured data at large enterprise and Internet scales,” he added.

Tiahrt earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of South Dakota. His development experience includes work on image databases, picture archiving communication systems, bioinformatics and information retrieval software.  He has been with BrightPlanet since the company’s founding and is the inventor or co-inventor on many of the company’s patents.

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BrightPlanet Corporation, Sioux Falls, SD, Charlotte, NC, Washington, DC, and New York, NY, is a private, venture-backed company founded in 1999.  Its mission is to obtain value from document assets through information automation and intelligence.  BrightPlanet is the leader in deep document content and the development of innovative ways to efficiently search, monitor, and manage all Internet and internal content.  BrightPlanet offers unique technologies for discovery, harvesting, management, aggregation, qualification, differencing, dynamic classification, and 'real-time' dissemination of this content.

Prominent BrightPlanet customers include the intelligence community, state and federal agencies, and Fortune 2000 companies.  Seven patents have been granted or are pending for various aspects of BrightPlanet's automation, discovery, and document management technologies. For more information about BrightPlanet, visit http://www.brightplanet.com, or contact Thane Paulsen at BrightPlanet Corporation - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - 605.331.6012.