Provo • When Susan W. Preator left an educational software company six years ago, she was planning for a quiet, uneventful retirement.

"I thought I was done, I was to retire and just grow tomatoes and be a [grandmother]," Preator recalled.

But on Thursday, Preator was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum for building up Imagine Learning, a firm that makes software used to teach children how to speak and read English.

Other honorees at the forum's annual awards luncheon included Fraser Nelson, executive director of the Community Foundation for Utah, and John Richards, a partner in Utah Angels, which provides venture capital.

Preator said some of her former colleagues approached her in 2004 and suggested forming a company to develop computer software to teach children English.

"That was the igniting force that put Imagine Learning together," she said.

The software is now used in 2,000 schools in the United States, including 350 in Utah, as well as in the United Arab Emirates, China and Costa Rica.

Preator said the software allows schools to give children a half-hour of English instruction a day for a fraction of the cost of hiring a tutor.

Nelson, former executive director of the Disability Law Center, received the Ron King Social Entrepreneur of the Year for founding the Community Foundation of Utah. The foundation works with entrepreneurs to raise money for various nonprofits and community groups.

"Our job is to take the brains of the folks in this room and bring them to the needs of our society," Nelson said.

Addressing social and cultural needs — such as clean air, health care and the arts — is good for business, Nelson said, adding it was an honor to receive the award.

"My father would rather see me recognized as a social entrepreneur than as a penniless do-gooder," Nelson said.

Richards, chairman of the Provo Business Development Corp., was saluted for assisting entrepreneurs. He was one of the early investors in Omniture, which was recently bought by software giant Adobe Systems Inc. for $1.8 billion.

Other honorees were Brad Caldwell, founder of Security Metrics Inc. in Orem, a company that helps companies secure credit card information; and Klymit founder Nate Adler, for creating the Inertia X-Frame, a compact, inflatable sleeping pad for campers.

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