Good morning and welcome to the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership’s 15th Annual Conference on Quality and Innovation, "Celebrating Excellence through Sharing."

     First, I want to thank our financial sponsors especially those who have decorated the hotel with their company banners. Our 2002 sponsors are Gold: Aquarion Water Company, Electric Boat, and Pfizer. Silver sponsors are Applied Psychological Techniques, Bayer, Cendant Mobility, Deloitte & Touche, Element Re, Fleet Bank of Connecticut, as well as Health Net of the Northeast, Honeywell Fire & Access Solutions Group, Pratt & Whitney and Robinson & Cole LLP.

     We are here today acknowledging the need for recognition of good work and to encourage others to achieve excellence.

     For us, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence is the culminating demonstration of excellence achievement. But of course, we recognize discriminating levels of excellence.

     This morning, we will be celebrating our entry level, CQIA Innovation Prize winners hoping to meet and learn from each other. For example, we have four organizations that deal with water.

1. Aquarion Water Company that brings needed water to our homes,
2. Basement Systems that removes unneeded water from our homes,
3. Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station that has developed a treatment for contaminated water and
4. OptiMarin that has a system to treat ballast water - the marine life filled-water that rides merrily as ballast in a ship until it arrives at a new location and gets dumped into alien marine-filled water when the ship is ready to take on freight.

Also at today’s conference we have representatives from seven Connecticut colleges and universities:

1. University of Connecticut - Stamford,
2. Norwalk Community College
3. University of Hartford,
4. Hartford College for Women
5. Trinity College
6. Southern CT State University
7. Eastern CT State University

Lots of ideas for you to share.

     And something else, that particularly appeals to me. For the first time in 15 years, a woman business owner applied for and won a CQIA Innovation Prize. As a matter of fact, three women are presidents of their companies, Applied Psychological Techniques, Element Re, and Advantage Resourcing. If you haven’t met, enjoy your meeting.

     We know that people learn from story telling, especially success stories. Today we have two of the best, David Neeleman with the "JetBlue Story" and Thom Crosby with "The Baldrige and Pal’s Quality Journey. 

     And in the afternoon we will celebrate CQIA’s first mid-level Connecticut Breakthrough Quality Award winner in five years. A little CQIA story: Ten years ago, we had our first mid-level winner. They were so excited, they designed and purchased an expensive trophy. Not only did they purchase one, they agreed to purchase a second one for the next winner. Five years later, Aquarion Water - then BHC - won. Not to be outdone by graciousness, they also agreed to purchase a trophy for the next winner. I want you to know that Basement Systems has agreed to carry on the tradition.

     No, we do not have a winner of our highest level award, the Connecticut Leadership Quality Award.

     But we are hopeful that we will have our first Baldrige winner from Connecticut by the Year 2005. For that to happen, we need two elements: Applicants, of course. But also examiners who can produce exceptionally good feedback. If you are smart, hardworking and want to learn the Baldrige criteria for yourself and your organization. Please see me. I will be calling all of you shortly.

     For years, people have been asking us for a way to begin - a tiny step - toward understanding the Baldrige criteria. The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership’s Advisory Group researched many Baldrige self-assessments but only one satisfied their requirement including cost of being "user friendly."

     In the name of sharing, the State of Michigan’s quality award is giving us the use -- without cost to CQIA or to you -- their starter guide. We still have a few klitches to work out but within the month it will be on our website for you to download, work on at your leisure, in groups or individually, then return it to CQIA. Expect an e-mail from me.

     Enough talk from me. Enjoy the Day!

Send mail to webmaster@ctqualityaward.org with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2007, 2008 Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership, Inc.
Last modified: 09/26/08