Press Release

Commerce Secretary Gutierrez Presents Baldrige Award for Organizational Innovation and Performance Excellence to Five Organizations

Ceremony Marks 20th Year of Award and First Awards to Nonprofit Organizations

WASHINGTON—Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez today presented five U.S. organizations with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest honor for organizational innovation and performance excellence. The ceremony—the 20th in the history of the award—honored the 2007 recipients and marked the first year that nonprofits were eligible to apply for the award. President Bush met with the winners informally to congratulate them at the White House earlier in the day.

“Quality, innovation, and competitiveness are essential to America’s global leadership,” said Gutierrez. “Each of the five recipients we honor here today has developed an innovative approach to performance excellence that benefits their organization, their community and our nation.”

The 2007 Baldrige Award recipients included: PRO-TEC Coating Co., Leipsic, Ohio (small business); Mercy Health System, Janesville, Wisc. (health care); Sharp HealthCare, San Diego, Calif. (health care); City of Coral Springs, Coral Springs, Fla. (nonprofit); and the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. (nonprofit).

The recipients were selected from among 84 applicants. Their applications were reviewed over a six-month period, including an on-site visit by a team of volunteer experts. An independent board of examiners evaluated the applicants in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; human resource focus; process management; and results.

Over the past 20 years the Baldrige National Quality Program (BNQP) and the Baldrige Award have been extremely successful in promoting performance excellence across the country and around the world. Examples include:

• Along with recognizing the achievements of the award recipients, a key measure of the BNQP’s impact has been the widespread use of its Criteria for Performance Excellence, the guide designed to help organizations of all types improve their operations. Ten million copies of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence—described by one industry CEO as “probably the single most influential document in the modern history of American business”—have been distributed since 1988, and about 1 million copies are downloaded annually.
• Nearly 5,000 public and private-sector leaders have served on the independent board of examiners that reviews applications for the Baldrige Award. Each applicant receives 300 to 1,000 hours of valuable feedback from these experts.
• More than 40 U.S. states and more than 45 countries worldwide have implemented programs based on the Baldrige criteria.

Named after Malcolm Baldrige, the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 to enhance the competitiveness and performance of U.S. businesses. It was expanded in 1998 to include education and health care and in 2007 to include nonprofit organizations. The award promotes excellence in organizational performance, recognizes the achievements and results of U.S. organizations, and publicizes successful performance strategies. Since 1988, 72 organizations have received Baldrige Awards.

The Baldrige Award is managed by the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in conjunction with the private sector.

Further information on the Baldrige Award is available at www.baldrige.nist.gov.

As a non-regulatory agency, NIST promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.