On April 15, 2012, U.S. Commerce Department Secretary John Bryson presented 11 U.S. organizations with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest honor for organizational innovation and performance excellence.
The ceremony-the 23rd in the history of the Award-honored the 2010 and 2011 recipients, listed with their category below:
2010
* MEDRAD (a division of Bayer Healthcare), Warrendale, Pa. (manufacturing)
* Nestlé Purina PetCare Co., St. Louis, Mo. (manufacturing)
* Freese and Nichols Inc., Fort Worth, Texas (small business)
* K&N Management, Austin, Texas (small business)
* Studer Group, Gulf Breeze, Fla. (small business)
* Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Md. (education)
* Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Downers Grove, Ill. (healthcare)
2011
* Concordia Publishing, St. Louis, Mo. (nonprofit)
* Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Mich. (healthcare)
* Schneck Medical Center, Seymour, Ind. (healthcare)
* Southcentral Foundation, Anchorage, Alaska (healthcare)
The Baldrige Award recognizes role models for organizational excellence-organizations that not only provide outstanding products and customer service, but also do so with ethical, transparent and accountable leadership, empowerment of employees and strong support to their local communities. Since it was first presented in 1988, the Baldrige Award-and the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program of which it is part-have grown in stature and impact. The Baldrige Program, the Award's criteria for performance excellence and the Baldrige Award recipients are imitated and admired worldwide.
The Baldrige Award and the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program are managed by the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in conjunction with the private sector. For further information, go to http://www.nist.gov/baldrige.
