Appointed by the NIST Director, examiners are responsible for reviewing and evaluating applications submitted for the Baldrige Award, as well as other assessment-related tasks. The examiner board is composed of more than 350 leading experts competitively selected from industry, professional, trade, education, health care and nonprofit (including government) organizations from across the United States.
Kamaljit is the Quality Systems Manager for the Division of Institutional Effectiveness at Gateway Technical College. She is responsible for the leadership, oversight and support of continuous improvement processes such as Lean Six Sigma throughout all divisions of the college. She works closely with cross-functional teams to identify and accomplish improvement projects to increase efficiency and productivity of college processes.
Under her leadership, the college established the Office of Quality Systems in 2013. Within this time frame, 100 percent of Gateway’s employees became White Belt trained with 21 Green Belt and 4 Black Belt Quality Champions infused across eight core areas of the college. Kamaljit earned her Black Belt certification in 2014. She has lead several Kaizen events across the college and serves as the project champion for over 13 projects garnering over $1 million dollars in cost savings (hard and soft).
Those selected for the Board of Examiners meet the highest standards of qualification and peer recognition, demonstrating competencies related to customer focus, communication, ethics, action orientation, team building and analytical skills. All members of the board must take part in a nationally ranked leadership development course based on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and the scoring/evaluation processes for the Baldrige Award.
Named after Malcolm Baldrige, the 26th Secretary of Commerce, the Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987. Awards may be given annually to organizations in each of six categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care and nonprofit. The Award promotes innovation and excellence in organizational performance, recognizes the achievements and results of U.S. organizations, and publicizes successful performance strategies. Since 1988, 99 organizations have received Baldrige Awards, including the 2014 winners: PricewaterhouseCoopers Public Sector Practice, McLean, Va. (service); Hill Country Memorial, Fredericksburg, Texas (health care); St. David’s HealthCare, Austin, Texas (health care) and Elevations Credit Union, Boulder, Colo. (nonprofit).
NIST manages the Baldrige Award in close conjunction with the private sector.
The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program also offers the 2015–2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework: A Systems Approach to Improving Your Organization’s Performance, which includes the world-emulated Criteria for Performance Excellence; Baldrige Excellence Builder, an entry-level version of the framework; nationally ranked leadership training; and the Baldrige Collaborative Assessment and other assessment tools. For information on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and the Baldrige Award application process, call (301) 975-2036, send an e-mail to baldrige@nist.gov, or visit http://www.nist.gov/baldrige.