MARYLAND PERFORMANCE
EXCELLENCE AWARDS
CONFERENCE AND AWARDS CEREMONY
A Day to Learn and Celebrate Performance Excellence

Monday, March 27, 2006
Riggs Alumni Center
University of Maryland, College Park

Complete agenda (pdf)
Directions (pdf)

LEARN PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE FROM THE BEST!!

• Join Maryland’s U.S. Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski and University of Maryland President Dan Mote in announcing the winners of the 2005 U. S. Senate Productivity Award and Maryland Quality Awards at an exciting luncheon awards ceremony

• Experience customer service at its best when The Ritz-Carlton Hotels, a 2-time Baldrige National Quality Award recipient, share their Gold Standards and customer service secrets

• Round up the best ideas for effective leadership and process management with Texas Nameplate Company, as they share ideas and tell how they have successfully embedded the Baldrige criteria into their manufacturing organization, increased business, and become the only small business ever to win the Baldrige National Quality Award twice

• Join Maryland’s 2004 Senate Productivity Award winner, Montgomery County Public Schools, as they share their journey toward continuous improvement in education

• Wrap up the day by attending a Getting Started with Maryland’s Performance Excellence Awards & Baldrige Criteria workshop, presented by highly trained state and national Examiners; one who was the lead writer for an award-winning application in Maryland’s awards program

• And . . . network and learn with business leaders who are working to improve Maryland’s economy

AGENDA

8:15 Registration, Continental Breakfast & Networking

8:45 Welcome
Milton Finch, Chairman, MPEA Executive Guidance Board

8:55 A Journey to Continuous Improvement in Education
Dr. Jerry Weast, Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools

Since 1999, Dr. Weast has led Montgomery County Public Schools and directed a series of reform measures designed to improve student academic performance, particularly those impacted by poverty, English as a second language, and disabilities. Ongoing initiatives include improved early childhood education, expanded full-day kindergarten, increased academic rigor, comprehensive teacher development, strengthened accountability, and expanded parent and community involvement.

MCPS is the largest school district in Maryland and the 17th largest in the nation, with nearly 140,000 students enrolled in 194 schools. They have adopted the Baldrige Criteria as their continuous improvement model and all schools use a school improvement planning model based upon the criteria. As the only school system to ever receive Maryland’s U.S. Senate Productivity Award, MCPS has been able to use feedback from both State and national awards programs to improve results in educating students of every age, academic, and socio-economic level.

9:15 Next Level Leadership
R. Dale Crownover, President & CEO, Texas Nameplate Company, Inc.

Texas Nameplate Company is the only small business to receive the Baldrige Award twice, first in 1998 and again in 2004. This privately held, family business produces custom nameplates, identification tags and labels, primarily for small businesses nationwide and abroad. Two years after receiving its first award, the company decided to go to the next level—not to get larger—but to get better. During the economic turndown following the September 11 attacks, they wanted to avoid layoffs. As employees left and the workforce was reduced, the employees worked together to improve their skills and cross train. By targeting specific areas for improvement, the company was able to increase its profitability from 36 to 40 percent, and in 2003, they outperformed other companies in the industry, and exceeded the performance of comparable organizations among Industry Week’s 2003 benchmark companies.

As President and CEO, Dale Crownover provides visionary leadership to the organization, encourages employees to perform excellently, and conducts business based on the Baldrige National Quality Award criteria. He attributes the company’s progress to: successful customer relationship building; effective use of innovative processes and technology to help achieve their goal to be “better not bigger”; development of an environment of trust where everyone in the company is valued, trusted and counted on for organizational success; and extensive efforts to achieve safety and environmental consciousness in an industry that uses chemicals and processes that are potentially hazardous and highly regulated.

Visit Texas Nameplate’s “The Hotrod” Intranet at www.nameplate.com/images/tnc_hi-rez.wmv and hear more about their award-winning performance excellence program.

10:15 Legendary Service at the Ritz-Carlton
Bryan Williams, Corporate Director of Training & Organizational Effectiveness, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC

Known for exemplary customer service and deluxe accommodations, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is the only hotel company to ever win a Baldrige National Quality Award. They have accomplished this twice, in 1992 and 1999. With 57 hotels worldwide, the tradition of service began in Europe in the late 19th century by celebrated hotelier César Ritz, the “king of hoteliers and hotelier to kings.”

Bryan Williams will share The Ritz-Carlton philosophy and Gold Standards which include The Credo, The Motto, The 3 Steps of Service, The 20 Basics and The Employee Promise. Additional tips will be shared regarding successful business practices, such as creating memorable guest experiences and wow stories, employee selection, orientation, training, empowerment and daily line up, which led The Ritz Carlton to being honored and recognized as one of the most customer service-oriented hotel companies in the world. You will learn how employee engagement leads to customer engagement and ultimately, to profits for the organization.

Mr. Williams has been with The Ritz-Carlton since 1996, serving in positions ranging from busboy to Director of Training and Development. He is directly responsible for ensuring that the company’s training directors are successful at their respective hotels and he travels globally to share The Ritz-Carlton’s best practices with companies across varied industries. As a Certified Quality Auditor and Baldrige Examiner, Bryan “lives for service,” and is passionate about reaching high levels of service and performance excellence through motivation, strength management and employee involvement.

11:00 Questions & Answers

11:30 Networking & Registration for Luncheon-Only Attendees

Noon Luncheon & Presentation of 2005 MPEA Awards
U. S. Senate Productivity Award & Maryland Quality Awards
by Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski &
University of Maryland President C. Daniel Mote, Jr.

2:00 Face To Face Feedback Meetings
2005 Award Applicants & Board of Examiners

2-3:30 Getting Started with Maryland Performance Excellence Awards and the Baldrige Criteria Workshop
Jan Carson, Assistant Administrator, Villa Maria Continuum
Dr. Sunil Sinha, Senior Medical Officer, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Learn how to use the Baldrige criteria and Maryland Performance Excellence Awards program to get your organization started on the road to quality, productivity and performance excellence. Presented by seasoned Baldrige and MPEA Examiners, this workshop will offer participants the opportunity to learn the value of creating a vision of a Baldrige-based organization, power of the Organizational Profile for creating clarity, critical points to starting the journey toward performance excellence, staying the course, and maintaining momentum. Both presenters serve on the MPEA Executive Guidance Board and have served as trainers for the 2005 MPEA Board of Examiners. Ms. Carson was also lead writer on the application that won the 2003 U.S. Senate Productivity Award.

QUESTIONS: Call 301-405-3883, or send us e-mail

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: MARCH 17, 2006

DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER (pdf file)

DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM (pdf file; please mail or fax)

DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER (pdf file)

DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM (pdf file; please mail or fax)

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