His colleagues say there's no one like him. He's been described as that rare person who can teach anyone about technical subjects, listen carefully, win over skeptical staff, and even emcee a retirement party with just the right mix of humor. Meet the 2023 Quality Professional of the Year.

Over the years, I have seen firsthand that there seems to be no shortage of opportunities for quality professionals to become an irreplaceable member of an organization if they are highly skilled in resolving issues.

In the quality industry, dealing with big data can feel like battling extraneous detail and being ever vigilant against poor assumptions. With millions of points of data, we can be overwhelmed by what is important and what is not.

Under Debra Dahlin's leadership, WBE-certified Reed Switch Developments Corp. (RSD) has grown steadily, despite a series of recessions, a global pandemic, and a major pivot from primarily standard parts into small-to-medium volume custom ones. Read more about the 2023 Quality Plant of the Year winner.

Information, knowledge, confidence, and an appreciation of risk and reward are important in quality.

Quality professionals quickly learn that they need to deal with a barrage of situations where their expertise is required to intervene, provide perspective, or in some cases lead teams to come up with a solution.

Along with a host of new products, THK had a record sales year in 2022. Perhaps you saw one of their two large booths at IMTS, with robots serving bottled water.

In 2022, this 100% woman-owned small business celebrated two key milestones: its 55th year in business, and 35th anniversary as a Wisconsin manufacturer.

Since they have achieved this cyber security status, EPM are currently ahead of the industry. Less than 30% of companies are where they need to be with cyber security compliance, according to their auditor.

Dealing with supply chain issues – lead times of more than a year for some components – means that the company has had to raise levels of inventory, not an ideal situation, but they’ve been able to adapt through it all.