Guy “Bud” Tribble, Apple’s vice president of Software Technology, is the winner of a 14th Annual Visionary Award by SDForum, a Silicon Valley source of information and education in the technology community.

Each year, SDForum honors exceptional visionaries and innovators — the technology industry’s leading venture capitalists, technologists, and entrepreneurs. Past recipients include: Vint Cerf, John Chambers, Jim Clark, Judy Estrin, Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla and Michael Moritz. The SDForum Board of Directors selects the award recipients based on their outstanding achievements and contributions to the technology industry. The 2011 Visionaries will be honored at the invitation-only ceremony on June 21.

Here’s what the SDForum Board of Directors says about Tribble: “Bud Tribble is Apple’s vice president of Software Technology, where he is responsible for the long term technical direction for operating system software. Bud began his career at Apple in 1981 as a manager of the original Macintosh Software team, helping to design the Mac OS and user interface. In 1985, Bud helped found NeXT Computer, where he was vice president of Software Engineering and a key architect of the NextStep operating system. He also worked at Eazel Inc. where he was vice president of Engineering and at Sun Microsystems as chief technology officer. Bud earned a B.A. degree in Physics at the University of California, San Diego and an M.D. and Ph.D. in Biophysics and Physiology at the University of Washington, Seattle.”