Melbourne-based AuthenTec Inc. was the only company from Florida to make the list this year. The list was compiled after Fortune staffers combed through nearly 200 primarily high-tech companies whose products were changing the nature of the sector they were in.

In AuthenTec's case, the 65-employee company, which spun from Harris Corp. in 1998, makes computer chips that use a person's fingerprint to restrict access to electronic devices, including computers, cellular phones and personal digital assistants.

Business experts say a national honor like this gives smaller companies like AuthenTec exposure and the prospect of added revenues or financing from new clients and interest by venture capitalists. The growth at these "upstart" operations also helps keep employment stable.

AuthenTec is no stranger to such honors. It has gotten several accolades in its field, known as biometrics. And, in October, the company made Inc. magazine's list of nation's 500 fastest-growing private companies, with an average revenue growth rate of
143 percent a year, ranking it at No. 258.

The company had $16.9 million in revenue in 2003, and has not disclosed 2004 revenue. AuthenTec officials say they have had profitable quarters, but don't know when they will be profitable for a full year.

Making the Fortune list is "obviously a great award for them and will, hopefully, enhance their position by bringing for national and international attention," said Patrick Arrington, assistant Florida state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Along with lending a greater degree of credibility and legitimacy to a company, "elevating them to a different bracket," he said, it also "enhances Florida's position as one of the best small-business climates in the country. These are the types of businesses that move Florida into the future."

The award reverberates as well across the biometrics industry, showing that technologies that read a person's fingerprints, eyes or face are "becoming more attractive and more mainstream," said Joseph Kim, associate director of consulting for International Biometric Group.

Overall, the biometrics industry is growing. From 2002 to 2004, annual worldwide revenues for biometrics doubled, from $600 million to $1.2 billion. Revenues are expected to reach $4.6 billion in 2008, according to New York-based International Biometric Group.

Speaking of AuthenTec, Fortune wrote: "Trying to identify hospital patients by fingerprints, Scott Moody and Dale Setlak discovered that prints are unreliable if fingers are dirty or scarred. They founded AuthenTec to develop touch-recognition technology."

In recent months, AuthenTec has expanded the security feature aspect of the touch-sensors to act as a mouse pad and even a speed-dial feature, in which each one of your fingerprints represents two numbers -- one when you swipe up, another when you swipe down. These features already are in use in cellular phones in Asia and could be in this country in 2006.

Moody, AuthenTec's president and chief executive, said he found out at 9 p.m. Monday -- while he was at work preparing for a board meeting -- that his company was going to be on the Fortune list that came out Wednesday.

When Fortune called, he thought the magazine was doing research on a biometrics story. He didn't realize he was in the running for the honor.

"It came as a surprise to me, but I am happy about it," he said. "We have certainly won a lot of awards, but to be recognized by a major business publication is just a different level. It's exciting."

The award also "reinforces that I made the right decision coming to AuthenTec," said Mark Heilpern of Satellite Beach, a field applications engineer who joined the company a year ago. "It makes me feel this company has a future that I want to be a part of."