During its 2015 CIO/CTO Awards ceremony on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Business Journal recognized Karl Chan, President and CTO of Laserfiche, with its highest honor: a Lifetime Achievement Award. Chan received this distinction for his leadership and vision in creating innovative technology solutions for Laserfiche and its customers.

Over 300 attendees were at the annual awards event held at the LA Hotel Downtown on June 3. The Los Angeles Business Journal invited 62 finalists who are information technology leaders at Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and not-for-profit organizations.

With Laserfiche since 1989, Chan has served as CTO since 2005 and President since 2014. He is actively involved in all aspects of the new product development cycle—from analyzing business needs to programming to marketing.

“It’s rare to find a leader who is willing and able to innovate in one spot for 26 years,” said Matt Toledo, Publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Business Journal. “Karl’s creativity, passion and technical expertise made him the perfect choice for the Lifetime Achievement Award.”

“Karl is a brilliant leader who has improved the company’s business performance in countless ways through his energy, discipline and passion for technological innovation,” said Chris Wacker, CEO of Laserfiche. “His keen business acumen and sharp technical skills motivate Laserfiche employees across all functional areas to continuously achieve new heights of excellence in bringing our enterprise content management solutions to the market.”

An expert in aligning technology with business goals, Chan has created many innovative solutions to business problems during his time at Laserfiche. He was instrumental in creating Laserfiche for Windows in 1994, Laserfiche Workflow in 1997 and Laserfiche Forms in 2011. More recently, he drove the development of both Laserfiche Connector—an easy-to-use tool that enables organizations to integrate Laserfiche with other software applications without programming—and Laserfiche Cloud.

“Karl is an inspiring leader who encourages employees across the company to think creatively about how to solve business problems,” said Thomas Phelps IV, CIO and Chief Corporate Strategist at Laserfiche. “He has been key in shaping a culture in which creativity is encouraged, teams are empowered to take risks in problem-solving and innovation is rewarded.”

More than 35,000 organizations around the world have adopted Laserfiche products to digitize documents and automate document-driven business processes such as accounts payable processing, case management and records management, among others.