Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award honored two small businesses for having shown exemplary practices. It was part of a Presidential-level honor shared among American organizations and businesses that also included one city government and two health care organizations as 2017 recipients.
“This program is about much more than recognizing successful organizations or winning a single award,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “The organizations which are given the Baldrige Award embody the competitive spirit which drives the American economy forward.”
Those chosen for the small business sector were Bristol Tennessee Essential Services of Bristol, Tennessee and Stellar Solutions of Palo Alto, California. They and the other recipients were deemed to have “an unceasing drive for radical innovation, thoughtful leadership, and administrative improvement,” according to the announcement made by Secretary Ross.
Bristol Tennessee Essential Services is an electricity and fiber services utility company that offers the fastest internet available in the US at 10 Gigabits per second. With over 33,000 customers the 68 employee company reflects how well-implemented efficiencies can be turned into savings for its customers—reaching approximately $70 million over the last 40 years.
Stellar Solutions is woman-owned small business specializing in technical expertise and management of aerospace programs. The company is dedicated to helping every employee achieve their dream job and also operates a humanitarian R&D program called QuakeFinder for the development of technology and methods to forecast earthquakes worldwide.
“This year’s honorees demonstrate clearly that organizations of all kinds can achieve sustainable high performance,” said Robert Fangmeyer, director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. “The missions for these organization are dramatically different, but they share a laser focus on doing the right things for their customers, employees and communities using the Baldrige framework. The payoff is great operational and business results.”
The other winners and their sectors were:
City of Fort Collins, Fort Collins, CO, nonprofit sector
Castle Medical Center, Kailua, HI, health care sector
Southcentral Foundation, Anchorage, AK, health care sector
The Baldrige Program is a public-private partnership funded in part through user fees that includes some support from the Baldrige Foundation. The Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 and 118 awards have been presented to 110 organizations (including eight repeat winners). To date, nearly 1,700 U.S. organizations have applied for the Baldrige Award with support from more than 30 independent Baldrige-based state and regional award programs covering nearly all 50 states.
