NEW ORLEANS, LA – September 7, 2006 – Blanchard Systems announces that Andrew Downs has joined the company as senior software programmer. Blanchard will utilize Downs' broad experience in product development and corporate IT to help build customized tools for customers to enhance existing products, as well as developing new solutions for Blanchard Systems. Downs has extensive experience as both a software developer and as a well-published technical writer. A recipient of BS and advanced degrees at Northwestern University, he brings with him expertise in a number of programming languages, including Java, C/C++, assembly, Perl, HTML, XML, JavaScript, and SQL. He has also worked within most operating systems, such as Mac OS X, Windows, Palm OS, Linux and HP-UX. Downs joins Blanchard from the Entergy Corporation, where he was a consultant and senior analyst. There, he was the architect and designer of electric utility transmission system applications. He was also the technical lead for the company's Java development team. Previously, Downs worked for a number of software developers and consulting firms, most recently at KnowledgeTree Systems, Inc., The Crescent Group, Descartes Systems Group, Snippets Software, and Template Software. Andrew's career includes concurrent experience as an accomplished technical author, writing feature articles covering software development topics in such areas as user interface, developer tools, and open source. He is author of numerous articles and papers for the Apple Developer Connection (including ‘Delivering Content with RSS for Web Developers on Mac OS X', ‘Taking Advantage of PDF Kit in Your Cocoa Application', and ‘Mac OS X Overview -Tiger'), papers for MacHack (including ‘Reporting file system events under OS X', ‘Writing an OS Shell in Java') and articles in MacTech Magazine (examples include ‘Dynamic Web Clipping on Palm OS', ‘Growing Java Beans' and ‘Java Debugging Aids'). Downs has also taught intermediate and advanced courses at Tulane University College. “We are extremely fortunate that Andrew has joined our software development group. He has very diverse programming knowledge and has applied it to a wide range of projects. It demonstrates his ability to tackle virtually any problem and resolve it. This is extremely important for Blanchard, whose customers very often require customization to their solutions to resolve unique system requests. He will also be able to help us as we evolve into new areas of software development,” comments Charles Blanchard, Blanchard Systems CEO. “We also intend to utilize Andrew's technical writing expertise, both for documentation and for corporate communications. He is an excellent writer and speaker, and will represent Blanchard well.”