Seven Additional Organizations Receive Maryland Quality Awards

    COLLEGE PARK, Md., April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The
 University of Maryland, U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin
 announce today that Howard Community College is recipient of the
 prestigious U.S. Senate Productivity Award.
 
     The award, part of the university's Maryland Performance Excellence
 Awards Program, honors role model organizations for successfully
 implementing systematic processes for continuous improvement and achieving
 outstanding results. Award recipients are evaluated rigorously by an
 independent board of examiners using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance
 Excellence, which measures an organization in seven areas: leadership;
 strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and
 knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results.
 
     "Howard Community College is an incredible institution -- but an
 institution is only bricks and building. What makes it great is determined
 students, powerhouse faculty and consistent leadership," says U.S. Senator
 Barbara A. Mikulski. "Community colleges are the gateway to the future.
 Howard Community College is an example of everything we want for our higher
 education facilities in Maryland."
 
     Representatives from the college received the award today at the 2008
 Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Annual Conference and Awards
 Ceremony, held at the University of Maryland.
 
     "I am very impressed by Howard Community College's commitment to
 offering its students the highest standards of quality, and by its
 continuous monitoring of student success and employee satisfaction," says
 U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin.
 
     Howard Community College is a publicly funded two-year community
 college serving the educational needs of the citizens and employers in
 Howard County since 1970. The college is located mid-way between the
 metropolitan areas of Baltimore and Washington. With its slogan, "You Can
 Get There from Here," the college has forged a variety of partnerships to
 offer career and transfer programs to 25,000 students annually at its main
 campus in Columbia, the Ecker Business Training Center, Laurel College
 Center, and the historic Belmont Conference Center.
 
     "A commitment to outcomes and assessment reveals not only the mindset
 of an institution, but also its heart," says Kathleen Hetherington,
 president of Howard Community College. "HCC has a passion to help students
 succeed and to 'discover their greatness.' That's what motivates the
 college's tireless pursuit of quality."
 
     Howard Community College employs a continuous flow of information to
 evaluate activities that serve students and help them succeed. A multi-step
 process is used to select, align, collect and integrate
 information--including evidence of student learning--to track daily
 operations and overall organizational performance. Every team and unit, as
 well as senior leaders, use a Plan-Do-Study-Act process called "FIRE It
 Up!" to innovate, design and improve work systems. Information is fed into
 the strategic planning process to clarify objectives and direct resources.
 
     Howard Community College ranks above its peers in indicators such as
 registered nurse licensure, employer training, and satisfaction of students
 and employees. The college also ranks high among its peers with a 50.1
 percent four-year transfer rate.
 
     "Howard Community College has a long history of using outcome measures
 to improve performance in the classroom," said Dr. Patrick Huddie, chair of
 the college's Board of Trustees. "The culture of the college says, 'the
 quest for excellence is never complete; you always try to improve.' That is
 the hallmark of a great institution."
 
     Additional winners of Maryland Performance Excellence Awards this year
 include:
 
     -- Allen & Shariff Corporation received the Bronze Maryland Quality
 Award. Headquartered in Columbia, Md., Allen & Shariff is an
 engineering/construction services company with a mission "to be the best by
 delivering outstanding engineering solutions and construction services that
 are innovative, efficient, practical and on-time." Founded in 1993, the
 company has 98 employees in four offices in Maryland and Pennsylvania and
 focuses its work on its core values of integrity, quality, team spirit,
 pride, growth and citizenship.
 
     -- Asbury~Solomons, Inc. received the Gold Maryland Quality Award. A
 not-for-profit 501(c)3 Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) located
 on a 58-acre waterfront, resort-like setting on the Patuxent River in
 Calvert County, Asbury~Solomons' mission is "to provide continuing care and
 services to the aging, in a dignified Christian environment in southern
 Maryland." With 500 residents in Residential Living, Assisted Living and a
 Skilled Nursing Facility, Asbury~Solomons' vision is "to be the first
 choice in senior living services and the employer of choice."
 
     -- The College of Southern Maryland received the Silver Maryland
 Quality Ward. Celebrating 50 years of providing the residents of Calvert,
 Charles and St. Mary's Counties with a broad range of high-quality
 associate degree and certificate programs, the College of Southern Maryland
 also offers short-term training, workforce development, cultural enrichment
 and continuing education offerings. In 2007, more than 21,000 students
 attended the college at any of its three campuses. The mission of the
 College of Southern Maryland is to prepare the students and community to
 meet the challenges of individual, social and global changes by offering a
 broad range of affordable, high-quality learning opportunities.
 
     -- The Information Services Division (ISD) of the National Institute of
 Standards and Technology (NIST) received the Silver Maryland Quality Award.
 Located in Gaithersburg, Md., ISD is responsible for creating, maintaining,
 organizing, and disseminating information and a NIST knowledge base to
 support the research and administrative needs required to fulfill the
 scientific and technical mission of NIST. Through the work of its Research
 Library and Information Group, Electronic Information and Publications
 Group, and Museum and History Program, ISD provides professional scientific
 and technical information assistance to NIST research staff through its
 research and publishing cycles.
 
     -- Naval Medical Logistics Command (NAVMEDLOGCOM) received a
 Certificate of Recognition. Located at Fort Detrick in Frederick County,
 NAVMEDLOGCOM is responsible for handling all medical logistics needs of the
 United States Navy, including procurement of healthcare professionals,
 operational and medical logistics, production and manufacturing, and
 external training. With 150 military, civilian and contract workers,
 NAVMEDLOGCOM provides medical logistics services, supplies, and equipment
 to 130 military treatment facilities and more than 300 Naval ships and U.S.
 Marine Corps units located throughout the world. The organization practices
 its guiding principles of honor, courage and commitment in all aspects of
 its services.
 
     -- Queen Anne's County Public Schools won the Silver Maryland Quality
 Award. Located at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Queen Anne's
 County is the gateway to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Within a rapidly growing
 rural community of 40,500 individuals, Queen Anne's County Public Schools'
 mission is "to educate, encourage and enable all students to become
 productive and contributing citizens in a diverse and changing world." The
 school district subscribes to this premise by providing rigorous academic,
 career, and technology-based education to more than 7,900 students,
 starting at age four and continuing through adulthood.
 
     -- Savantage Financial Services, Inc. received the Bronze Maryland
 Quality Award. Savantage provides accounting, information technology,
 financial systems and e-business solutions, as well as a wide range of
 software products and consulting services, to government organizations. As
 a woman-owned, small business headquartered in Rockville, its number one
 priority is customer service, and its core values of dedication, hard work
 and a commitment to innovation are essential to making customers
 successful. With a highly educated and diverse staff, its corporate culture
 focuses on leadership, integrity, a passion for learning, mutual respect,
 and a drive for initiative.
 
     Since 1983, Maryland's U.S. Senators and the University of Maryland
 have joined together to help Maryland organizations achieve excellence and
 world-class results using the Maryland Performance Excellence Awards
 process to inspire, coach and recognize role model organizations for their
 successful implementation of systematic processes and achievement of
 outstanding results. The awards program provides an opportunity for
 organizations to improve their performance through self-assessment, writing
 an application, receiving an external analysis, participating in workshops
 and conferences, benchmarking with other high-performing organizations and
 sharing best practices.
 
 
 
     About the Maryland Performance Excellence Awards (www.mpea.umd.edu)The
 Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Program recognizes and honors
 high-performing organizations in Maryland. Given since 1983 by Maryland's
 U.S. Senators and the University of Maryland, the awards foster
 process-based, measurable, continuous improvement that drives results,
 creating successful organizations that strengthen the Maryland economy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SOURCE Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute