2:09 p.m., Feb. 9, 2010----The Delaware Quality Award Executive Council and the University of Delaware honored the 2009 recipient of the Delaware Quality Award -- Bayhealth Medical Center, Child Care and Early Learning Center -- during an event held Feb. 4 at Clayton Hall on UD's Newark campus.

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Bayhealth Child Care and Early Learning Cener was presented the Delaware Quality Award of Merit.

The Delaware Quality Award program started in 1992 and the top annual award was named in honor of W. L. (Bill) Gore for his effort in promoting excellence, innovation, and a positive working environment at the company that bears his name, W. L. Gore and Associates.

In a keynote address preceding the awards ceremony, New Castle County Executive Chris Coons spoke on the “Delaware Quality Award: Historical Perspective.”

Coons discussed the quality movement in the United States and how it came to fruition. He said the movement came into prominence just after the national automotive industry was publicly melting down and “we were beginning to be fearful as a nation that we had lost our competitive edge in manufacturing, which had really been the base of the American economy and of the middle class of the United States population.”

Coons also noted that the quality movement grew in importance as it became apparent that other countries were “capable of building things that we'd actually invented as a nation, to a quality that far exceeded ours and at a cost less than ours.”

It was at this point that Coons said America “rolled up its sleeves” and started to look into the problem. Out of this effort came the Delaware Quality Award.

Before presenting the Delaware Quality Award of Merit to the Bayhealth Medical Center, Coons said, “Ultimately, the best test of the history of the Delaware Quality Award is its impact. Today, we move to a new phase for the Gore Delaware Quality Award, but I think what it has achieved over its time is a profound and sustained impact on the private sector, on the non-profit sector, and on the public sector.

“When it began, it was a time in American manufacturing history when we didn't realize how important quality was, and we'd gotten stuck in a place in our culture and in our companies where quality seemed to elude us. Several decades later, we're in a place where American manufacturing and innovation is recognized as competitive with our top competitors worldwide.”

Brenda Kibler, the director of Bayhealth Medical Center, Child Care and Early Learning Center, accepted the award on behalf of the organization.

Said Kibler, “When we were announced the 2008 recipient of the Delaware Quality Committment Award, we realized that the journey was not over, it was just taking a new turn. We now faced the challenge of applying for the next level of the Delaware Quality Award, the Award of Merit. One may look at this as a chance to be recognized, but we used this experience to improve our organization.”

Kibler added, “This experience has rewarded us in many ways. The recognition and the award alone are a very prestigious honor. Furthermore, this experience has rewarded us by stimulating us to evaluate other work processes we can improve on in the future.”

Tom Inagaki and Betty Snyder, both of W.L. Gore and Associates, spoke next about the path forward -- a lecture series that will be developed in consultation with the University of Delaware and the Gore family, and that Inagaki explained will explore “new ideas in organizational excellence.”

Rick Andrews, deputy dean of the Lerner College of Business and Economics, closed the ceremony by explaining, “I'm very excited to announce the Lerner College of Business and Economics will be coordinating the W.L. Gore Lecture Series in Management Science, starting spring 2011. The lecture series will feature experts in the application of probability, statistics, and experimental design to business decision-making. The series will target participants in business, government, academia, engineering, and medicine.”

The Delaware Quality Award was established in 1992 as a public-private partnership to promote and recognize performance excellence throughout the state.

As one of 37 state award programs based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Delaware Quality Award applicants were evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results.

The evaluation process for each of the recipients included from 500-1,000 hours of review and an on-site visit by a team of examiners to clarify questions and verify information in the applications.

The Delaware Quality Award has been a program of the University of Delaware's Division of Professional and Continuing Studies.

Article by Adam Thomas
Photos by Ambre Alexander