BETHESDA, Md. — The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) has presented the 2012 Aftermarket Visionary Award to Ray Nicholas, vice president, information technology, Standard Motor Products, in recognition of his leadership and volunteer contributions to the advancement of technology in the aftermarket. The award was announced at the AAIA Fall Leadership Days meetings last week in San Francisco, Calif.

Nicholas was selected by the members of the AAIA Technology Standards Committee in recognition of his years of service to the committee and his tireless commitment to new technologies that add efficiency and improved levels of service to the relationship between Standard and its customers. He is also a past chairman of the AASA Technology Committee.

“Ray is someone to whom the aftermarket industry turns to get things done and go further than others have gone before,” said Scott Luckett, CIO, AAIA. “Ray Nicholas ensured that Standard Motor Products was among the very first to build Web services to streamline electronic transactions with customers and support aftermarket data standards as a common language for catalog and product information exchange. Recently, Standard developed an automatic test bed for trading partners and other suppliers to use in validating their Internet Parts Ordering (IPO) Web services.”

Ray Nicholas has been vice president, information technology, since September 2006. He joined the company in 1990 as data processing manager for the Four Seasons Division. In November 2001, he was promoted to manager, information systems/ERP projects. From September 2003 until September 2006, Nicholas was director, information technology.

Past recipients of the Aftermarket Visionary Award are Mike Williams, O’Reilly Auto Parts; Ed Heon, Datagility; Nick Porrini, Technologue; Joe Register, Prescient Technology; and Jerry McCabe, J&B Service.