Capstone Turbine Implements BeneTrac Online Benefits Administration Program.

Business Editors

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2001

Hawthorne Benefit Technologies Inc., one of the leading providers of online employee benefits programs announced that Chatsworth, Calif.-based Capstone Turbine Corp. has implemented the BeneTrac online benefits tracking solution, www.benetrac.com, for their 260 employees.

BeneTrac offers a powerful online benefits tracking solution to a national base of employers. Available to companies through their insurance professionals, the Web-based technology eradicates redundant data entry as well as other inefficiencies that are inherent in a paper-based benefits administration system.

Employers who subscribe to the BeneTrac service own their own data and are able to access the information that is stored on BeneTrac's secure servers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Implementation of Capstone Turbine's BeneTrac program was coordinated internally by Human Resources' Manager of Administration Debbie Bernard. Bernard commented that the company has undergone a period of rapid growth in a relatively short time. She credits BeneTrac with helping reduce the paperwork associated with administering health benefits.

Bernard said, "I'm saving between five to 10 hours a month in health benefits administration, but the real savings are more than just time. It's more convenient to administrate employee benefits online and there's a savings of office storage space and organizational time. By having files online, they are always at my fingertips.

"I never need to look for a misplaced file or wait to have access to a locked file room."

She added, "Using BeneTrac has been a great experience. It's user friendly, and the electronic processing and online enrollment is very efficient. At the beginning, some employees questioned if their online enrollment was accurate because the process seemed too easy -- they thought they were doing something wrong. That wasn't the case; it really was that easy."

BeneTrac enables human resource departments to:

-- Establish customized benefit plans

-- Offer Internet enrollment into plans

-- Update employer data and calculate eligibility dates for new employees

-- Devise custom reports using Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel

-- Automate a range of employee benefit programs, including health, vision,
dental, disability and COBRA

About Hawthorne Benefit Technologies Inc.

Hawthorne Benefit Technologies Inc., established in 1987, develops specialized applications for the insurance industry and for human resource managers. Privately held and based in San Diego, Hawthorne Benefit Technologies has a management team with collectively more than 75 years of insurance industry experience.

The technology solutions from Hawthorne combine the efficiencies of the Internet with established insurance distribution models to reduce paperwork and supply accurate, up-to-the-minute information.

A provider of best-of-breed software, Hawthorne Benefit Technologies was one of the first West Coast companies to offer a B2B real-time online employee benefits administration and tracking solution -- BeneTrac, www.benetrac.com. Within the same time frame, the company also developed BeneQuote, www.benequote.com, its proprietary online quoting system for insurance professionals.

For information on either BeneTrac or BeneQuote, please contact Art Brooks, [e-mail], at Hawthorne Benefit Technologies, 877/645-4342 (toll free), or write to them at 550 West C Street, Suite 1320, San Diego, CA 92101.

About Capstone Turbine

Capstone Turbine (www.microturbine.com) (Nasdaq:CPST) -- winner of Financial Times Energy's (www.ftenergy.com) 2000 Global Energy Award for Most Innovative Commercial Technology -- is a leading producer of low-emission microturbine systems. In 1998, Capstone was the first to offer commercial power products utilizing microturbine technology, the result of more than 10 years of focused research.