ATHENS, Ga. – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans has appointed P. George Benson, dean of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, to the board of overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
The board of overseers advises the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on the conduct of the Baldrige Award program and on how well it is serving the national interest.
Benson’s term as an overseer begins immediately and ends on February 28, 2007. His association with the Baldrige Award began in 1997, when Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor appointed Benson to a three-year term as one of nine national Baldrige Award judges.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was established by Congress in 1987 to improve performance in U.S. organizations. Awards are made to organizations that have substantially benefited the economic or social well-being of the United States through improvements resulting in performance excellence. Awards can be given in five categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education and health care.
The application process is rigorous and thorough. Applicants for the award submit up to 50 pages of details showing processes, improvements and results in seven areas: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results. Each applicant receives more than 400 hours of review by an independent board of business, education and health care experts and a detailed report citing strengths and opportunities for improvement. Since 1988, 56 organizations have received the Baldrige Award.
The award is named for Malcolm Baldrige, who was secretary of commerce from 1981 until his death in a rodeo accident in July 1987. Baldrige was a proponent of quality as a key to the United States’ prosperity and long-term growth and helped draft the act establishing the award program. NIST manages the Baldrige National Quality Program in conjunction with the private sector.
George Benson has served as dean of the Terry College since July 1998 and holds the Simon S. Selig Jr. Chair for Economic Growth. He previously served from 1993 to 1998 as dean of the Rutgers Business School (Newark and New Brunswick) at Rutgers University. From 1977 to 1993, he was a faculty member in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Prior to that, he was a member of the technical staff at AT&T’s Bell Telephone Laboratories in Whippany, N.J., working in the area of information systems. He also worked for the U.S. Army Security Agency in Arlington, Va., as a management analyst in the area of worldwide personnel planning.
Benson currently serves on the boards of directors of Nutrition 21 Inc. (Purchase, N.Y.) and University Ventures Inc. (Newark, N.J.). He is also on the board of advisors of Executrack Inc. (Atlanta), the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the board of governors of the Buckhead Club (Atlanta). Benson is a bimonthly columnist for Georgia Trend magazine.
Benson received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Bucknell University in 1968, did graduate work in operations research in the engineering school of New York University, and received a Ph.D. in decision sciences from the University of Florida in 1977. He is a native of Lewisburg, Pa., and is the son of the late Paul Benson and Anna Louise Stolz McDowell of Athens, Ga.
More information on the Baldrige Awards is available online at www.quality.nist.gov.
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NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos of George Benson are available at www.photo.alumni.uga.edu.
