Henry Dubroff, the founder, editor and chairman of the Pacific Coast Business Times, was honored with the Joe Nida Entrepreneurial Spirit Award at the 2013 Clean Business Investment Summit in Santa Barbara on Sept. 12.

The award recognizes exceptional work promoting entrepreneurship on the South Coast. “Henry has been at the heart of the success of so many entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations throughout our region — including our own,” California Coast Venture Forum CEO Jerry Knotts said in a statement. “We are extremely honored to present The Joe Nida Spirit Award to Henry, to acknowledge his exhaustive efforts on behalf of entrepreneurs and to salute him as an example of entrepreneurship and clean business growth.”

Dubroff founded the Business Times, the largest financial and business news publication between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, in 2000 after serving as the editor of the Denver Business Journal and as business editor at The Denver Post. He received a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He is a longtime board member and past president of the board of governors of the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, is a member of the council of advisors for the dean of the California Lutheran University School of Management and serves on the boards of the United Way of Santa Barbara County, Ventura County Economic Development Association and the San Luis Obispo County Economic Vitality Corp. His previous awards include winning the Small Business Journalist of the Year and American City Business Journals’ General Excellence Award.

This year’s Clean Business Investment Summit sold out with more than a dozen companies pitching to a crowd of several hundred investors. The Joe Nida Entrepreneurial Spirit Award is named in honor of the late Joe Nida, the founder of the California Coast Venture Forum. The organization said the award is given to entrepreneurs and pioneers who “have exhibited tremendous courage, perseverance, and success throughout their careers — bettering their respective industries through the spirit of entrepreneurship.”

Previous award recipients include Kinko’s founder and philanthropist Paul Orfalea and Christie Communications founder Gillian Christie.