Foundry’s CIO 100 Award recognizes enterprise excellence and innovation in IT.
Dallas, TX – March 30, 2026 – Foundry’s CIO has named Industrial Refrigeration Pros as a 2026 CIO 100 Award Winner. For over 40 years, the CIO 100 Awards have recognized innovative organizations that exemplify the highest level of strategic and operational excellence in IT.
“The CIOs we’re recognizing this year aren’t just keeping the lights on, they’re driving the business,” said Richard Smith, Head of Event Content, CIO 100 Awards & Conference. “AI, data, security, cloud; it all lands on the same desk now, and the best CIOs have stopped treating them as separate problems. The 2026 class shows what it looks like when you get that right.”
“This award validates what we’ve believed all along: IT isn’t separate from the business -IT is the business,” said Thomas Sweet, CIO of Industrial Refrigeration Pros. “A small IT team built RefrigAgent in four months using AI tools, with no consultants and no vendors, while still completing our “day jobs.” We’re proving that small, focused teams can deliver innovation that rivals what much larger organizations build. This recognition from CIO 100 means a lot to our entire team.”
Industrial Refrigeration Pros is using AI to transform how industrial facilities achieve regulatory compliance. RefrigAgent, the company’s AI-powered SaaS application, generates IIAR 6 inspection, testing, and maintenance plans in minutes -work that traditionally costs $35,000-$40,000 and takes weeks. By offering this tool free to facilities, IR Pros has created its first digital customer acquisition channel, reducing the cost of customer acquisition while expanding into new markets like data centers.
Executives from the winning companies will be recognized at the CIO 100 Awards and Conference.
About the US CIO 100 Awards:
The annual US CIO 100 Awards celebrate 100 organizations and the teams within them that use IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth, or improving relationships with customers. The award is an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence.
Coverage of the 2026 US CIO 100 award-winning projects will be available online at cio100.com
About the US CIO Hall of Fame Awards:
The US CIO Hall of Fame was created in 1997 to spotlight 12 outstanding IT leaders who had significantly contributed to and profoundly influenced the IT Discipline, the use of technology in business and the advancement of the CIO role. Ten years later, in 2007, CIO inducted its second class of honorees into the CIO Hall of Fame during CIO magazine’s 20th anniversary celebration. The CIO Hall of Fame induction ceremony continues to showcase this elite group of CIOs – now numbering over 200.
About CIO:
CIO focuses on attracting the highest concentration of enterprise CIOs and business technology executives with unparalleled peer insight and expertise on business strategy, innovation, and leadership. As organizations grow with digital transformation, CIO provides its readers with key insights on career development, including certifications, hiring practices and skills development. The award-winning CIO portfolio provides business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT’s role in achieving business goals. CIO is published by Foundry. Company information is available at foundryco.com.
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About Industrial Refrigeration Pros
[Industrial Refrigeration Pros (IR Pros) is a national provider of industrial refrigeration design, construction, and service solutions. Headquartered in Dallas, TX, IR Pros supports over 1,450 facilities across food processing, agriculture, cold storage, and emerging markets like data centers. Backed by Saw Mill Capital, IR Pros operates as a mobile-first, cloud-smart, AI-forward company committed to delivering technology-enabled solutions to the industrial refrigeration industry. Learn more at irpros.com.
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