By David Liscio / The Daily Item / October 23, 2008

LYNN - A GE executive, a staffing professional and musical minister were the top winners at Thursday's 8th annual North of Boston Businesswomen of the Year Awards held at North Shore Community College in Lynn.

Doreen Murray from the Lynn non-profit Follow Hymn Music, Inc. won the civic non-profit category. Janet Santa Anna, founder of Resource Connection Inc., a staffing company headquartered in Middleton, won the small business category. Andrea Cox, senior engineering manager for GE Aviation's Advanced Programs in Lynn, took home the large business category award.

The women were culled from 20 finalist nominees who were among hundreds vying for the prestigious Lydia Pinkham Awards, named for the entrepreneurial saleswoman and Lynn native. Pinkham's homemade vegetable compound remedy made her a fortune in the late 1800s.

Eastern Bank and The Daily Item, both sponsors of the awards event, each gave $1,000 scholarships. The winners were North Shore Community College students Megan Cioffi and Kelly Rockwood, both of Lynn. The students fulfilled the award requirements by achieving grade point averages above 3.25, completing more than 24 academic credits, and demonstrating financial need.

Shirley Singleton, co-founder of Edgewater Technology, was the event keynote speaker. A former public schoolteacher, Singleton lost her job due to tax cuts in the early 1980s, a stroke of fate that led her to pursue a consulting job in the burgeoning high-technology sector.

Singleton co-founded Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 1992 and grew it into a multi-million-dollar consulting and Internet company. Ten years later, she sold the company for a hefty profit. The formerly private company became publicly traded and, surprisingly, Singleton was asked to stay on as its chief executive officer.

Through the sale, the employees received $5 million of the proceeds, which they divided. It was a high time in Singleton's career, but the levity of 1999 would soon be replaced by the dark days of 2000, when on the day before Christmas a disgruntled employee gunned down seven colleagues in the Wakefield office.

Michael McDermott, a then 42-year-old software engineer, used a semiautomatic rifle and 12-gauge shotgun to kill his co-workers. The murder trial that followed overshadowed the ongoing company transition but Singleton survived and was elated when McDermott was finally convicted and sentenced to a lengthy jail term.

The following year was marked by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, repercussions in the financial markets and, more recently, a national recession. Despite these setbacks, Edgewater Technology has continued to thrive, and is ranked as a $70-million company, she said.

Looking back at her career path, Singleton said she never imagined herself transforming from public school teacher to head of a multi-million-dollar high-technology company. The jobs may have changed along the way, but the things she values most remain unaltered: honor, integrity, professionalism and community.

Cox, winner of the award for businesses with more than 50 employees, is responsible for driving the development of advanced technology for GE's next-generation aircraft engine programs. She oversees costly vital projects and leads a team of engineers that interacts directly with U.S. military customers as well as the company's global researchers.

Married with two young sons, Cox continues to work with graduating seniors at Lynn Classical High School in an effort to promote their entry into technical careers.

Santa Anna, winner of the award for businesses with less than 50 employees, co-founded the women-owned and managed The Resource Connection (TRC) staffing company in 1987 at the age of 29. The company was named to the Top 100 Women-led Businesses in Massachusetts for the last two years by the Center for Women's Leadership at Babson College.

A Danvers resident, she is president of the board of directors of Strongest Link AIDS Services, and is a member of the NSCC Business Advisory Board.

Murray, winner of the non-profit business award, currently operates Follow Hymn Music Ministries, Inc., which runs a variety of programs, including the Follow Hymn Interfaith Choir, and the Building Bridges Community Youth Outreach Program. The latter brought together middle school students from the Ford School in Lynn and those from Marblehead Middle School through musical performance. The goal was to help the students understand the pains of racism and how music can be a bridge to eliminating it.

Murray is also a full-time special education academic support instructor and choir director at KIPP Academy charter school in Lynn, and an aquatic rehab practitioner at Exercise Prescriptions, Inc., a Lynn business she owns and operates.