“Don’t just get better once; get better constantly. Always be looking for something to improve.”
In 2020 I became the 70th President and Chair of the Board of Directors of ASQ, the Society’s youngest ever Chair since its founding in 1946.
With over 60,000 members in over 120 countries, it was truly a dream come true for a kid who fell into the QA profession in my twenties working at a battery factory in the Georgia countryside.
// East Coast to West Coast
My involvement with ASQ over the years has taken me from Atlanta to New York City to Silicon Valley, each change in geography growing in parallel to my career in the profession. It is a huge honor and privilege to now help lead the Society from a global perspective.
// Supply Chain Quality
My QA expertise is in supply chain and manufacturing quality (which pretty much just means I used to spend a lot of time hanging out in factories and warehouses in remote parts of the world).
Along the way I've worked alongside some of the most incredible folks ever in the QA profession. Building better processes that enable the best possible experiences for the end user has become central to my product development work in the present day.
// HONORS & RECOGNITION
November 2016 - Named one of Quality Progress Magazine's New Voices of Quality, the magazine's 40 under 40-ish list
November 2015 - Elected as Fellow of ASQ
June 2013 - Recipient of ASQ's Armand Feigenbaum Medal, the Society's top international honor for a young professional
// Remembering Navin Dedhia
I was hunched next to what appeared to be a fence made out of twigs while people holding trays of sandwiches and salads rushed around me.
It was a Saturday afternoon at the Westfield San Francisco Centre, a large shopping mall on the edge of one of the city’s tourist nerve centers.
Even worse than being in a high traffic shopping mall on a Saturday was being in the food court of a high traffic shopping mall on a Saturday.
I pressed the phone closer to my ear.
“I’m so sorry, Navin. Can you repeat what you just said?”
“Yes.” he said, “What I wanted to say is that all of your endorsements are completed and the committee reviewed your election status. Congratulations!”
I couldn’t be sure if I had heard correctly or if it was just the food court echoes tricking my ears.
“ASQ Fellow?”
“Yes. Congratulations. It will go to the Board for formal approval now.”
Navin had been mentoring me through the rigorous ASQ Fellow process over the past several weeks. I was still two years before joining the ASQ Board as a Director-At-Large with no idea that was going to be part of my future. I was growing in my career as a quality professional but still had lots more to learn.
But thanks to Navin’s encouragement, I ended up joining the ASQ Fellow cohort at the mathematically earliest possible time having just recently crossed the 15 year mark lin my career.
That was a hallmark of Navin. Believing in you before you were confident enough to believe in yourself.
I was just one of numerous other ASQ members whom Navin had shepherded through the rank to share his knowledge, expertise and encouragement.
The global quality community lost one of our biggest mentors and stewards of the professional talent pool. It was by no mistake that Navin was Quality Magazine’s 2021 Quality Professional of the Year. To quote from his citation:
Navin Dedhia has published two books and more than 50 technical papers and 100 articles, made more than 75 presentations and taught numerous quality related courses.
He’s also received more than 20 prominent awards and honors. Most notable are:
ASQ Fellow
Two ASQ medals (Distinguished Service Medal and the Lancaster Medal)
Asia Pacific Quality Organization Harrington-Ishikawa Medal
ASQ Inspection Division’s Lessig Award
ASQ Los Angeles Section: Simon Collier Quality Award
Kachchhi Oswal Jain Association In North America Lifetime Achievement Award.
I am so grateful that much of my own growth in the profession was due to people like Navin taking chances on people like me, inspiring all of us to compassionately support our close knit community.
// Late Night Drinks in Boston
My article on building solutions for the end user was published in the ASQ’s Journal for Quality Perspectives in Knowledge Acquisition Winter 2021 issue. Breweries, product design and pool tables are involved. Please belly up to the bar for a read.
// Excellence Congress, Camara de Industrias de Costa Rica (November 2021)
It was pretty cool to be invited to speak at this year’s National Excellence Congress, hosted by Costa Rica’s Chamber of Industry. I got to share my thoughts about best practices for talent attraction and retention in professional societies and applying those concepts to for-profit corporations.
A lot of the reasons why people choose to be a part of a professional society is not that they must, but that they want to. My talk spent some time discussion must vs. want and including employee growth as a part of organizational growth.
One thing that’s definitely not excellent is my Spanish, so I gave my talk in English, my first time presenting with real time translation and Q&A happening at the same time.
Helping round out day one of the conference, I shared the afternoon with colleagues from ASQ past and present as well as with some long term industry partners.
Thanks to ASQ Board Member Edwin Garro who was on the viewing side of the conference for these attendee’s-eye view of my talk.
I take great pride in presenting over the airwaves to Edwin’s slick Alienware laptop in Costa Rica.
Following the program on the opening day with IMCG Director Carolina Sordelli, a colleague who I got to cross paths with in ASQ and her co-presenter Macarena Bacigalupo, both of Argentina-based IMCG Consulting.
Watching incoming ASQ Chair-Elect for 2022, Paco Santos get ready to take the virtual stage for his talk on quality improvement systems.
// Sandholm 50th Anniversary (September 2021)
I’m grateful to be part of the two week virtual speaker series celebrating Stockholm based Sandholm Associates’ 50th Anniversary celebration.
I’ll be joining several other Past Presidents and leaders of ASQ for several days of programming focused on quality, continuous improvement and emerging technology.
I’ll miss joining Lars Svorquist, Sandholm’s President and current ASQ Board Member, in person in Sweden, but looking forward to sitting in on so many talks from world experts on quality.
// World Conference on Quality and Improvement (May 2021)
After our phenomenal tiger team came together last year to in the midst of a pandemic to creating an incredibly polished, virtual-first WCQI for 2021, with interactive round-tables, smooth virtual networking opportunities and as WCQI is known for, presentations from the latest thought leaders in the quality and continuous improvement profession.
Some highlights this year, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett declaring May 24, 2021 as ASQ Day; opening keynote Shannon Huffman Polson, the first woman to fly an Apache A64 and lead a platoon on three continents; our closing keynote Derreck Kayongo who founded an initiative to take the eight million bars of wasted hotel soap discarded each year by US hotels and refine and remanufacture them to provide basic hygiene to the neediest communities in his home country of Uganda.
This was all made seemingly effortless, seamlessly effective and highly interactive by our hard working IT, production and communications team at ASQ.
So proud of the #WCQI2021 team this year!
Milwaukee Tom Barrett issuing a Proclamation for May 24, 2021 as ASQ Day
Shannon Huffman Polson was the first woman to ever pilot an Apache A64 helicopter despite a resistant culture and ultimately led platoons across three continents. For The Grit Factor she promoted the idea of “grounded optimism”:
“You can never lose faith that you will ultimately prevail in the end, which is a faith you can never afford to lose, balanced with the sometimes brutal realities of what you face day to day.”
"The only thing that fits in that little cockpit is a publications bag, a Power Bar and a Diet Coke."
When steering an Apache, it’s just you and your mindset and a 5 ton helicopter.
Student volunteers at the University of Michigan holding the finished bars of reprocessed soap, ready to package and send them on their way to Liberia and Uganda.
Koyongo’s foundation of SELF when serving communities.
To lead a community is to serve the community on its own terms and needs and together you learn from each other in the process.
// Inaugural ASQ Women in Quality Symposium (December 2020)
I am so proud of our full time ASQers in Milwaukee who helped put together our first ever Women in Quality Symposium as part of the Society’s larger culture, diversity, equity and inclusion work this year.
It only took us 75 years to finally recognize the importance of having a standalone platform to bring our community of incredibly talented and ambitious women together to lead the profession and become role models at the Society. As our Interim CEO Ann Jordan highlighted, 2021 will be the first year in which the Chair of ASQ, the Chair of our Technical Communities Council (TCC), the Chair of the Global Communities Council (GCC), and the Chair of our sister 501c6 organization ASQExcellence, will all be women.
In ASQ’s 75 year history, just 7% of ASQ Presidents (which we call Chairs) have been women. Among ASQ Fellows, the most distinguished group of quality experts and professionals making up less than 1% of the Society, less than 10% are women and only one quarter of one percent are black.
I’m so inspired that this symposium will help with the momentum we tried so hard to get initiated in 2020. We have much, much further to go.
// More Than a Little Help
Throughout the 18 years I formally worked in the quality profession, navigating all of the ups and downs of the corporate world could not have happened without several people along the way who continued to push, inspire, and guide me. Here’s a running list of influential people I’ve been honored to have taken a chance on me along the way.
// Esther Solomon, PhD - Professor at the Fordham Gabelli School of Business (New York)
With Dr. Esther Solomon and husband Jan, catching up over Greek wine and quality conversation during the New York City Christmas holidays season.
// Bill Latzko (1928 - 2018), Adjunct Professor at Fordham and Columbia University (New York)
One of the first mentors that took me in upon my arrival in New York, Dr. Bill Latzko was a colleague of Deming’s and was an advocate of his teachings in industrial and operations research. I was a regular speaker on lean sigma in his management classes at Columbia. Learned so much about the profession, living a fulfilled life, and even fencing (both Bill and his wife Connie were themselves fencers and former managers of the US Olympic Fencing team).
// ASQ Year-End Annual Business Meeting (October 2020)
I don’t always give opening remarks at meetings, but when I do, I talk about food.
Leading a professional society under COVID-19 conditions has really spurred and accelerated innovation and execution on all fronts. There’s no way this year would have been able to happen the way it did without the support of a high energy, motivated Board of Directors, super polished and exceptionally skilled Full Time ASQers, and our 60,000 members across 120 countries.
It was also year of many virtual firsts for a Society whose members look forward to our major in-person annual events, but I’ve just been so grateful and mindblown at the level of dedication of ASQers out there who saw this as an opportunity to connect us all even closer together.
Our first virtual annual business meeting happened in October 2020 and while we traded sitting side by side in vast convention halls for sitting screen to screen in our shelter-in-place desks and home offices, I’ve never been more proud of the collaborative team that’s stepped up to tackle one 2020 challenge after another.
// First ASQ Virtual World Conference on Quality and Improvement (May 2020)
Coronavirus said make all your in-person gatherings virtual this year.
Coronavirus said, don’t travel to another one of those conference centers, the ones with the hotels attached to them via meandering skyways.
Coronavirus said that instead of standing mic’d up next to a podium in front of a convention hall next to a podium glowing with stage lighting, stand in front of your bookshelf at home in front of your laptop webcam.
So that’s exactly what ASQ did this year, kicking of our first ever fully virtual WCQI, ASQ’s biggest gathering of the year for members, speakers, keynotes and presenters.
The result?
Over 7,400+ attendees (!!), almost 3 times the in-person attendance.
ASQ members continue to astonish me with their dedication to the field and I’m so thankful to be able to serve alongside them this year.
// Surreal Certifications
I received my first ASQ Certification in 2004, the Society’s flagship, Certified Quality Engineer, or CQE. Renewing on a three year basis, each cycle pushes you to reflect on participation in the profession and staying continuously educated to stay relevant while keeping old skills sharp.
One traditional detail for ASQ certs is that the Chair of the ASQ Board of Directors, along with the head of the Cert Board for that year, are the ones whose signatures appear on every certification issued that calendar year.
As it happened, my re-certs for my CQE and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) were issued the year I became Chair.
So I had to do a quick double-take when I saw my own signature on my renewed cert.
It’s been many moons since I used my break time at the factory in a battery plant to study for the CQE exam as an emerging process engineer. Many a late night Steak n’ Shake dinner after working overtime also contributed to my study sessions.
I appreciate so much that this came full circle in the most quirky of ways and am grateful for the mentors and coaches that encouraged me to pursue certifications in the first place.
// First Board Meeting of 2020 (February 2020)
As is traditional for the first board meeting of the year to be held on the Chair’s home turf, I had the pleasure of hosting the team in Silicon Valley in February.
More exciting for me was kicking off the three “Theme Teams” I’d be chartering for 2020:
Financial Transparency
ASQ Culture
Member Value Acceleration
New board members kicking off a new fiscal year are always both exhilarating and super anxiety inducing, but the strength of the talent mix I get to serve alongside of in 2020 will make it all worthwhile.
I’m hoping to dismantle some of the bureaucratic and hierarchical perceptions that non-profit boards tend to carry on their shoulders and looking forward to making our key deliverables for the year hard centered on individual member value, for our 60,000 members and for our decades old modern profession.
// ASQ Inspection Division Conference - Louisville, Kentucky, US (September 2019)
Meet n’ greet dinner with the ASQ Inspection Division Leadership Team on the night before their annual conference.
All badged up and hydrated. Just moments before my conference keynote on emerging technologies and the QA profession.
At the start of fellow ASQ Board Member Jane Keathley’s talk on cybersecurity and quality management systems (QMS).
…the making of bourbon as well as its tasting. At the start of the plant tour at Angel’s Envy distillery in downtown Louisville.
Words of wisdom from Angel’s Envy founder and Bourbon Hall of Fame inductee Lincoln Henderson (1938 - 2013)
Some see a bottling line; a QA professional sees one piece flow, preventative maintenance records, packaging ergonomics, sanitization SOPs, and throughput capacity. Sometimes it makes our heads hurt, but we can’t help ourselves.
Barrels soon to be blessed by Angel’s Envy for a second maturation. The darker wood barrels on the right are 40+ year old rum barrels from the Caribbean!
I think Louisville has something to do with horse racing.
Taking in the history, architecture, and between-race silence of Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.
Obligatory selfie in front of the Churchill Down gates.
Eddie Arcaro (1916 - 1997): 5 time Kentucky Derby winner and the only jockey to have won the Triple Crown twice.
Triple Crown winning horses: Whirlaway (1941), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), American Pharoah (2015), and Justify (2018). Whirlaway and Citation were both jockeyed by five time Derby champion Eddie Arcaro.
One of the world’s most famous finish lines?
// Strategic Planning Committee Meeting in Milwaukee (August 2019)
Always an honor and privilege to have a strong team to work alongside of as we had into the challenges of the year ahead.
// 2019 World Conference on Quality and Improvement - Fort Worth, Texas
Each summer, The World Conference on Quality & Improvement is ASQ’s largest annual event, drawing over 2000 attendee from across its 130 represented countries. This year’s event was in Fort Worth, Texas and was my first as ASQ Chair-Elect.
Excited and honored to take the stage as the 2019 Chair-Elect of ASQ. Also exciting was talking my way into getting a song by metalcore band Darkest Hour as my entrance music. \m/
The International Team Excellence Award finalists.
Congratulating some of the Continuous Improvement Storyboard teams on being audience vote winners. Here with the team from Peru.
The Argentina team roaring their way onstage to be one of the teams placing Gold in the International Team Excellence Awards finals.
Sons of Liberty was a great mid-day coffee oasis nearby the Fort Worth Omni where I could escape in between sessions to catch up on email and correspondence, reflect on the week’s comings and goings, or just mindfully sip delicious coffee. Super nice crew and a wonderful third place for the week.
The green room where I’d run through my remarks in my head, administer taste-sized doses of Dr. Pepper (apparently a locally manufactured sensation here), or hang out to introduce or welcome keynote speakers.
Had the huge pleasure of thanking author Charlene Li (of Groundswell fame), who was one of this year’s closing keynote speakers. She spoke on disruptive leadership, social media, and member engagement. Here watching her talk from the green room before heading back onstage to thank her and close the conference.
All the finalists and Bronze / Silver / Gold recipients were so enthusiastic and beaming with national pride. Here the Argentinian and Chinese teams post flag waving ceremony for their performance in continuous improvement case studies from their respective companies.
I tried to include Tex-Mex in at least one meal a day during my stay in Fort Worth. The first of my taco side quests was to Velvet Taco, whose added bonus was their later opening hours (as the sign so proudly advertises).
Waiting to pick myself up.
Velvety Tacos.
One of ASQ’s most exciting programs is our World Partners Forum, where our sister quality organizations join together to share best practices and discuss ideas for collaboration across country lines. In this one photo alone joining the US: Portugal, China, Israel, Czech Republic, Singapore, Germany, Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Sweden, United Arab Emirates.
At the World Partners session, gesturing dramatically while I speak to better appear as if I know what I’m talking about.
True legacy. For a 73 year old organization like ASQ, that means there have been a lot of Past Presidents. Two more years before I become “a true has-been” and join the ranks of these fine folks. Back Row (L to R): Elmer Corbin (2018); Stephen Hacker (2014); Steve Bailey (1997); Jerry Mairani (2005); Pete Andres (2009); From Row (L to R): Mike Jones (1996); Liz Keim (2002); Chuck Aubrey (1992); Jack West (1993); Pat La Londe (2016)
When in Texas.
Photo crashing Past Presidents Chuck Aubrey (1992) and Debbie Hopen (1995). When Debbie became President in 1995, she was ASQ’s youngest and first female President. When she was an undergraduate, all of her schools of choice told her women weren’t admitted to their engineering programs so it was nothing new to adapt to being “around roomfuls of business men all the time”.
The 2019 ASQ Board of Directors just before we headed into our end-of-week board meetings here in Fort Worth.
Plenty of challenges ahead with no easy solutions. Together we agree, disagree, challenge, collaborate, push back, inspire. And when this many people have each other’s back, no complexities seem unsolvable.
A post-meeting recharge at the Kimbell Art Museum.
Visiting the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, checking out what’s left of Bas Jan Alder’s performance piece from the 1970s. Ultimately his boat was recovered during an overseas voyage but he was never found. The ultimate performance piece perhaps…
First tried at a moonshine bar in Deep Ellum a couple of years prior, I was finally able to catch up with a quality, hand-made bottle to take home. The chemical engineer in me was excited and intrigued that this is actually fermented from the prickly pear cactus vs. having grain moonshine infused with the plant. Grassy, punchy, Dallas-y.
The ASQ Board settling into work mode in one of the Sundance conference rooms inside the Omni Fort Worth.
Reflecting on a long week of questions, answers, and more questions with a little help from Torchy’s Tacos and a cold, cold Topo Chico.
Past, Present, and Wannabe.
I’m the Blue Power Ranger.
// ASQ Fellow (May 2016)
I was incredibly honored by being elected as a Fellow of ASQ in November 2015 thanks to the support and mentorship of several quality gurus in the ASQ Silicon Valley Section and cementing all the work and talented teams I had served with in ASQ in New York. Currently, Fellows make up ~1% of ASQ’s total membership. The ceremony was held at the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement, which was held in ASQ’s hometown of Milwaukee this year.
Standing with my 2015-16 ASQ Fellow class.
// Joining the ASQ Board of Directors (November 2015)
The ASQ Center in downtown Milwaukee, site of the former Gimbels Department Store from 1925 to 1997.
I don’t officially join the ASQ Board until January 1, 2016, so getting to join the current board on this excursion to the Baldrige Award winning Pewaukee School District just outside Milwaukee proper.
Pinned.
ASQ Headquarters is like a Hard Rock Cafe meets Quality history with gems like this: Joseph Juran’s bowtie!
So cool to find out this Honors Gallery was here, showing the award winners and medalists from past years.
The wall of Past Presidents of ASQ (nowadays referred to as Chairs).
Gathered up a few board members for a fish dinner at the Milwaukee Public Market.
Each night I’d make it to this Colectivo Coffee just before closing so I could have a to-go brew to take back to my room and round out the night catching up on email or just reflecting on the day.
// Quality Exams and Coffee (and Escapist Books)
Books-A-Million’s Peachtree City location, my library away from home.
When I lived in suburban Atlanta early in my career, one of my milestones as a quality professional was to take and pass the ASQ Certified Quality Engineer exam. After work, I’d make the short road trip to neighboring Peachtree City, grab Thai food in the strip mall, and then haul my books into Joe Muggs, the cafe section of my local Books-A-Million store.
My routine would be to set up my work table, get a cup of coffee (by that point the store and cafe staff knew me by name) and start plowing through my study materials. Studying in a bookstore has always been a meditative, peaceful experience for me. To take I break I could stroll the stacks, check out bestsellers, live out my escapist daydreams by flipping through travel guidebooks to San Francisco or Barcelona or London (okay honestly, mostly San Francisco).
Then it’d be back to the cafe to refill my mug and return to filling my brain.
// ASQ FEIGENBAUM MEDAL (INDIANAPOLIS, 2013)
At the ASQ Medalists Award Ceremony with 2013 ASQ President John Timmerman and ASQ Past President Liz Keim
When in Indianapolis, flex your ASQ branded F1 race car.
In May 2013 I was named recipient of the 2013 ASQ Feigenbaum Medal, the Society's highest international award for a young quality professional. It was an privilege to be listed with the other ASQ Medalists and Honorees this year at the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held in Indianapolis.
Looking at the other Medalists and honorees, which included former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and statistics thought leader Douglas Montgomery, I was the only person I had never heard of (copies of Montgomery's book, Probability and Statistics in Engineering and Management Science, co-authored with William Hines, and Design and Analysis of Experiments, deemed to me as "the bibles of industrial quality statistics" by my mentors, were pressed into my hands on the first day I started as a quality assurance engineer.
The giant main event hall at the Indianapolis Convention Center.
Front and center in the Sagamore Ballroom at the Indianapolis Convention Center, prior to the start of the medals ceremony.
On stage with 2013 ASQ President John Timmerman for a congratulatory handshake during the medal ceremony.
On stage with the other ASQ honorees and medalists. Among the other distinguished recipients, the second person from the right is former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill (!)
Not sure why I’m staring off into the ceiling.
It was a huge honor and it felt like a cumulative effort over the past several years where I've had the opportunity to lead quality and engineering projects both within my work as well as within the ASQ itself, my home section, the ASQ New York/ New Jersey Metropolitan Section and the leadership of the National Society of Professional Engineers. With this recognition, I join a list of past Feigenbaum Medalists who have all continued to pursue impactful changes in their respective industries and careers.
The Medal is named in honor of Armand V. Feigenbaum, one of the pioneers of the Total Quality Management movement who fostered thinking about quality as a systems science and promotes the interdisciplinary application of quality tools and methodologies.
On the back of the Feigenbaum Medal itself, it states, "For Outstanding Early Accomplishment and Potential."
No pressure on the "potential" being demonstrated in the future, right?
Thanks also go to the early encouragers and mentors who first brought me under their wing in the quality profession: Trudy Edenfeld and Sara Miles who steeped me in statistical process control and onboarded me into the world of quality assurance engineering, Nita Cato who was always my biggest cheerleader and confidante and Walt Laurel, who encouraged me to pursue my first ASQ certification, the Certified Quality Engineer (CQE).
Armand V. Feigenbaum (1920-2014) making an appearance at The ASQ Center at World Conference.
Anyone who’s worked across time zones has had this moment. Leaving the office to grab takeout…to eat back at your desk for an evening teleconference with an overseas partner. My trusty San Francisco post card never let me down—always a beacon to keep going.
// Getting Started
Found these old photos of my office when I officially became a quality engineer (i.e. I was volun-told to take over the SPC system for the LaGrange factory and I changed my business card title from Process Engineer to Quality Engineer. Legit.)
I’ll let the quality of the images speak for themselves when it comes to guessing how long ago they were taken. Photos were shot on a digital camera that then cost $500 and used a floppy disk as storage).
My first real office desk! Perhaps a story for another time, but above the stapler and tape dispenser is a postcard of my dream city, San Francisco.
I kept it tacked to the cubicle walls of every office at every site I ever worked in my career until 2014. In April of that year, I finally moved to San Francisco and my daydream postcard became a backyard reality. Today, that same postcard is framed and hangs above the desk in my home office.
Since I was a young emerging engineer with no friends and family in the area nor any related life commitments outside of work, I didn’t have any personal photos to put in my office.
Instead, you can (barely) see portraits of 19th century physicists Alessandro Volta and Ludwig Boltzmann. On the wall is a framed postcard of Modigliani’s Young Woman of the People (1918) that I got at a museum store.
You can see how much of a social life I had those days.
// WHAT'S QUALITY ENGINEERING?
Quality Engineering is the application of statistical and industrial tools, thought processes and methodology to execute and deliver a quality product or experience to the end user (whew!)
As of today, there are few academic opportunities to major in quality engineering. Most QEng fall into this intersection of industrial and supply chain engineering through their encounter with industry.
If an engineer comes up with the one perfect solution to a problem, the quality engineer ensures the right processes are in place that make that solution scale successfully.
That could mean making one thousand bottles of Tide laundry detergent, or one million Duracell AA batteries, each one as statistically close to identical as physically possible.
Closeness to customer standards, focus on the end user: that's quality.
