MILWAUKEE, WI— ASQ will present its Honorary Member, Distinguished Service Medals and 12 other awards May 4 in Dallas, Texas, USA, prior to its annual World Conference on Quality and Improvement.

ASQ, a leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations and industries, recognizes recipients for their innovative contributions and achievements in quality. Winners’ exemplary achievements are representative of the ideas and tools that make our world work better.

Each individual will be recognized during ASQ’s Annual Business Meeting, Sunday, May 4. For more information about ASQ awards, visit www.asq.org/about-asq/awards.

Honorary ASQ Member

To be elected as an honorary member, the individual being considered should have made enduring contributions to the profession of quality and the allied arts and sciences.  

Election will be restricted to individuals who are so well known and so clearly pre-eminent in the profession that there should be almost no doubt of their being worthy of such recognition. Elected as an Honorary Member is:

Douglas C. Montgomery, regents’ professor of Industrial Engineering at Arizona State University in the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Tempe, AZ — For having made multifaceted contributions to the science of quality and to the quality profession though leadership, books, research papers, teaching, consulting and editorial work; for developing and promoting the use of sound statistical methods in quality improvement, process optimization, and in process and product development; for the far-reaching global impact of books and papers on regression analysis, designed experimentation, process monitoring and control, engineering statistics and response surface methods; and for amplified impact through the contributions of his many Ph.D. students.

Distinguished Service Medal Winners 

ASQ’s Distinguished Service Medal represents the highest distinction for service from ASQ and honors the lifetime contribution of any person who has been recognized as a long-term enabler, catalyst or prime mover in the quality movement. The Distinguished Service Medals for 2014 have been awarded to:

Dennis Arter, Columbia Audit, Kennewick, WA — For exemplary leadership and contributions at ASQ’s division, national, and international level to advance the quality profession over the last 30 years; for distinguished accomplishments that include being a pioneer in transforming quality auditing to a management tool for improvement through his classic textbook Quality Auditing for Improved Performance, first published in 1989 and now in its third edition; for a class by the same name that was the only ASQ class on auditing for many years; and for passion and multiple presentations, papers, articles, blogs, online discussions and free speeches.

Robert Camp, Best Practice Institute Inc., Ithaca, NY — For being recognized worldwide as the pre-eminent best-practice benchmarking authority, author and coach, motivating and helping hundreds of organizations and thousands of quality practitioners around the world understand and incorporate world-class best practices as the method of choice for pursuing and achieving increased performance, productivity, continuous quality improvement and competitive advantage in their business processes; and for conducting research, education and consultation with organizations focused on a structured approach for the capture, exchange and adoption of best practices, worldwide, through best-practice benchmarking to become the best of the best.

Kenneth E. Case, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK — For exceptionally dedicated service as a volunteer leader at the highest levels of ASQ and as an educational thought leader, promoting and disseminating quality knowledge within the national engineering community of the United States.

Grace L. Duffy, Management & Performance Systems, Eustis, FL — For selfless service as a long-term enabler, mentor and champion of quality around the world; for sharing quality principles and best practices for the benefit of the quality community; for sincere dedication, exemplary leadership and sustained service for the Society in promoting quality principles, applications and methods; and for devoting talent and time to enhance the image of ASQ at national, section, regional and international levels.

Elmer (Bud) Gookins, Jr., Times Recorder, Zanesville, OH — For selfless service as a long-term enabler, mentor and champion of quality around the world; for sharing quality principles and best practices for the benefit of the quality community; for sincere dedication, exemplary leadership and sustained service for the Society in promoting quality principles, applications and methods; and for devoting talent and time to enhance the image of ASQ at national, section, regional and international levels.

Michael D. Jones, Retired, Gulf Shores, AL — For dedication to learning, using and sharing his knowledge of quality methods; for commitment and efforts to improve the lives of people and the viability of organizations by helping them understand quality methods and how to apply them effectively; and for service to ASQ at a variety of levels and in many diverse ways, with the goal that ASQ may serve our members in ways that improve their careers and their personal lives.

2014 Society Medals:

Crosby Medal presented to Debashis Sarkar, Asia’s Service Lean Pioneer and Author, Mumbai, India — For his thought leadership in conceptualizing numerous strategies, tactics and tools that focus on improving holistic organizational performance; his efforts to popularize lean concepts among service companies not just in Asia, but around the world; his contribution through books, columns and workshops that have benefitted change leaders and practitioners globally.  

Deming Medal presented to Michael D. Tveite, Polaris Industries, MN — For masterful explanation of Deming’s ideas to diverse audiences and for teaching and use of statistical thinking in his roles as consultant and manager.

Freund Marquardt Medal presented to Dorothy P. Bowers, Matawan, NJ — In recognition of her outstanding leadership and dedication in the development of international standards; for her significant and substantial contributions in the fields of quality management, environmental management and social responsibility; for her application of the quality management principles to the standards development process; and in recognition of her important literary contributions.

Grant Medal presented to Robert E. Cole, Haas School of Business and Department of Sociology, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif., and Institute for Technology, Enterprise & Competitiveness (ITEC), Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan — For a lifetime commitment to rigorous research into the sociological phenomena that influence quality practices within the work environment and stimulate innovative action through the participation of workers; and for publication of his research results in the world’s most influential quality and management journals.

Hutchens Medal presented to Staffan Söderberg,  AMAP Sustainability, Stockholm, Sweden — For his leadership in bringing an international standard on social responsibility from a mere concept to full-blown reality, a reality that has shaped and will continue to shape the implementation and evaluation of social responsibility activities into the future.

Ishikawa Medal presented to Gregory H. Watson, Business Excellence Solutions Ltd., Espoo, Finland — For his innovative contributions in the promotion of Japanese-style Total Quality Management as originated by Kaoru Ishikawa and the preservation of the memory of Ishikawa as one of the most influential thought leaders within the global quality community.

Juran Medal presented to Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI — For decades of executive leadership in quality at two of our nation’s iconic companies; for in-depth learning and application of quality-based systems transformation; for development of an innovative measurement and reporting system; for serving as an exemplar to other executives of rigorous and constant attention to continuous improvement; and for serving as a staunch ambassador of ASQ and its goals.

Lancaster Medal presented to Yuanzhang Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China — For his sustained dedication to promotion of quality in China and throughout Asia, leading to setting a program of quality improvement as a national priority for Chinese industrial policy to increase quality of life throughout society.

Shainin Medal presented to Patricia A. Cyr, Harris Corp., Rochester, NY — For the development of new methodology that compares the holistic change in system performance before and after a process or product modification. 

Shewhart Medal presented to Bovas Abraham, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada — For outstanding contributions to quality improvement though research, teaching and consulting; and for leadership in professional societies and education and outreach through conference organization.

Brumbaugh Award presented to William Q. Meeker Jr., Iowa State University, Ames, IA; Georgios Sarakakis, Tesla Motors, Palo Alto, CA; and Athanasios Gerookostopoulos, ReliaSoft Corp., Tucson, AZ— For co-authoring the paper, "More Pitfalls of Accelerated Tests," published in 2013 in Journal of Quality Technology, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 213-222.

Gryna Award is presented to John R. Latham, Monfort Institute at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO — For authoring the paper, "A Framework for Leading the Transformation to Performance Excellence Part II: CEO Perspectives on Leadership Behaviors, Individual Leader Characteristics, and Organizational Culture," published in 2013 in Quality Management Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 19-40.