Harnish Cited for Innovative Technology Use

Michael W. Harnish received the 1999 AICPA Innovative Users of Technology Award in April at the AICPA Computer and Technology Conference in Denver.

Harnish is the chief information officer at Dickinson Wright, a Chicago-based law firm with about 200 attorneys in six offices throughout the Midwest and Washington, D.C. Earlier, he was Crowe, Chizek & Co.’s partner-in-charge of technology. His primary focus at Dickinson Wright has been developing ways to enhance collaborative systems and transaction-processing systems. The project that led to his winning the Innovative User of Technology Award was the development of an extranet system for a client that automated its loan transactions. It resulted in reducing loan-transaction processing time by more than 400% and increasing the number of loans generated by the same number of employees by 500%.

“By pushing the envelope of technology, Mike is a role model for today’s CPAs,” says Louis Matherne, the AICPA’s director of information technology.

Harnish is a member of the AICPA’s business and industry executive committee as well as the American Bar Association’s futurist committee. He was the first chairman of the Institute’s information technology executive committee and membership division.

Great Plains, the Intel Authorized Solution Provider program and Microsoft sponsored the award.