Join us at Georgia’s premier event to promote and recognize achievement in organizational performance improvement and excellence. This year’s Georgia Oglethorpe Annual Conference & Awards Banquet features keynote speaker, Dale Crownover, president of Texas Nameplate Company. Crownover, a visionary leader and inspirational speaker, is a two-time Malcolm Baldrige National Award winner. This event features educational seminars, keynote speakers, networking opportunities, exhibits, and presentation of awards and recognition. The Georgia Oglethorpe Award Process is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Award. The conference will be held Wednesday, October 1, and Thursday, October 2, 2008 at The Loudermilk Center, 40 Courtland Street, SE, Atlanta.

CONFERENCE BENEFITS:

• Take advantage of any business downturn by tightening and aligning your business operations using the Criteria for Performance Excellence – the centerpiece for knowledge at this event.
  
  
• Attend workshops both days covering the key Georgia Oglethorpe (Baldrige) Criteria process categories of Leadership; Strategic Planning; Customer & Market Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management; Workforce Focus; and Process Management.
  
  
• Network at the Wednesday evening reception with people from award-winning organizations that have achieved continuous improvement through use of the Georgia Oglethorpe criteria and principles.
  
  
• Attend Thursday’s Awards Banquet, which provides a forum to recognize organizations that use the Georgia Oglethorpe criteria to improve bottom-line performance. Attendees will gain new insights and enthusiasm for creating and sustaining high performance in their organizations.
  
  
• Hear inspirational presentations by Awards Banquet keynote speaker, Dale Crownover, president of Texas Nameplate Company. Crownover led the continuous quality improvement program at his company to achieve 30% production improvement with 30% fewer employees. After attaining this and many other outstanding performance improvements throughout the company, Texas Nameplate won the Texas Quality Award then went on to be the smallest company ever to win the national Malcolm Baldrige Award, not once but twice! Dale Crownover speaks October 2 both at 9:00 a.m. and at the Awards Banquet beginning at 12:15 p.m.
  
  
• Learn from current and previous award winners how they integrated Georgia Oglethorpe’s criteria and principles into their organizations to achieve exceptional performance improvement results.
  
  
• Discover how your organization can utilize the three-steps -- Georgia Oglethorpe Award (Step 3), the Georgia Progress Award (Step 2), or the Georgia Focus Recognition Certificate (Step 1) -- to create and sustain higher levels of organizational performance.
  
  
• Discover the many benefits of serving on the Georgia Oglethorpe Board of Examiners.

REGISTRATION FEES:

$25 Wednesday evening reception only
$75 Thursday awards banquet only
$225 for single-day events
$395 for all events for the two-day conference

Meals and snacks are included as appropriate.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT TODAY

RSVP with check or credit card by noon on Friday, September 26, 2008.
*** First 30 full-conference registrations receive a special gift bag! ***
For program information and registration form, click Registration or visit www.GeorgiaOglethorpe.org and click on “Conference.” To register by phone, call 404-232-3808 (Voice Mail).

Georgia Oglethorpe Award Process, Inc. is a nonprofit public-private partnership that provides low-cost, high-value education, assessment, feedback, and recognition to Georgia’s business, industry, government, education, healthcare, and nonprofit organizations. It promotes both strategic and tactical organizational performance improvement and excellence through use of the Criteria for Performance Excellence - the same Criteria used to determine recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Award.

The Coca-Cola Company is a corporate sponsor of this event. Sponsorships opportunities and exhibit tables are still available.