Preparation

The Baldrige Program is the nation’s public-private partnership dedicated to performance excellence. The Baldrige Program:

• Raises awareness about the importance of performance excellence in driving the U.S. and global economy.
• Provides organizational assessment tools and criteria.
• Educates leaders in businesses, schools, health care organizations, and government and nonprofit agencies about the practices of best-in-class organizations.
• Recognizes national role models and honors them with the only Presidential Award for performance excellence.^[1]

Your Task

1. Go to the Baldrige Award website and look through the list of award recipients.
2. Select a recipient. The recipient you choose can be from any industry, any year—whatever interests you.
3. Read the recipient’s profile and application summary. Visit the organization’s Web site, if possible, and learn as much about their operations and mission as possible.
4. Your written submission should include the following:
   1. The winner’s name, industry, and year they received the award.
   2. Some of the key the factors you believe contributed to their winning this prestigious award.
   3. What other businesses in the same industry could learn from the winner.
   4. How you believe this award differs from awards given based purely on consumer-opinion surveys and customer. satisfaction ratings (i.e., JD Powers, Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping).
   5. Whether or not your opinion of a company would be affected if it won the Baldridge award.