Happy September all

I would like to first thank John Abrahamian from Shainin LLC for his presentation. This was our first meeting for this fiscal year and we are off to a good start. I would also like to thank Richard Shainin for also attending our meeting and adding some background about Shainin LLC. I would like to thank Dick for talking about his Dad, Dorian who was a long time member of our section and has his name attached to the Dorian Shainin Metal that ASQ awards. The Dorian Shainin Metal was a labor of love for several of our members to get Dorian so recognized as the quality leader he was. I also need to thank Ha Dao the current Chair of the Automotive Division of ASQ for being a sponsor of this event making this our first joint meeting with a Division of ASQ.  Hopefully we will be doing more joint events with other Divisions of ASQ.

October will bring another section member to the podium to talk about Leadership and Voice of the Customer and from Tom we received the following:

Objective:  Discuss the leader’s responsibility to understand the VOC and communicate it to his or her followers.

One of the key competencies of Leadership is communications.  There are two types of communications we need to pay attention to as a leader.  The first is the communications with our followers.  This is not always as easy as it appears.  Taking an analogy from ballroom dancing, there is a clear distinction between the leader and the follower.  There is also no verbal communications during the dance.  It is all nonverbal.  However, it is also very much a two way conversation. 

One of the main ideas the leader is communicating to the follower in ballroom dancing is the type of music and how the leader would like to interpret it.  The follower then takes that information and adds his or her interpretation to it adding detail.  It is through this communication that together the leader and the follower deliver to the customer the right product or service at the right time.

Bio:

Tom Berstene is a past chair of the Human Development and Leadership Division of ASQ.  He is currently their communications chair.  Tom is also the founder and president of WorkForce Planning Associates, Inc.  WFPA focuses on Decision Support Consulting and works in the areas of Leadership, Organizational Development and Quality.  Some of Tom’s clients include the United Illuminating, Department of Public Health, Web Industries, Aetna, ING, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, PETROTRIN, T&TEC and many others. 

Tom is a retired Lieutenant Commander from the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve and a plank owner in the Coast Guard Leadership and Development Branch located at the Academy in New London, CT.  Prior to founding WFPA, Tom worked for Aetna, Inc. as a Senior Design and Evaluation Consultant.  He is also a member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).
November will bring Joe DeFeo and the Juran Institute. We will be putting together the information during the month and I will update the message when I have that information.

January we have Shin Taguchi and the Taguchi method.

February we will have Tom Southworth on the subject of Training within Industry (TWI).

March will feature a speaker from just over the line from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
Leonard Deneault who is the Executive Director for Mass Excellence and the Malcolm Baldrige award will be the subject of this meeting.
 
April is still open as of right now and our plant tour [May event] hasn’t been planned as of this message to the members.

June we might be able to bring to Hartford another special event this time from ASQ Headquarter on the subject of the Future of Quality and also of ASQ with Paul Borawoski  Executive Director of ASQ, or someone else from Headquarters. This will be a longer format event.

One last event is going to be held in Marlboro Massachusetts and this is the yearly Member Leader training event.  This is a no cost event as the North East Quality Council provides this training for all of Region 1 and parts of Regions 2 and 3. The Regional Directors and some of the Deputy Regional Directors will be on hand to provide guidance and answer questions.

See you all in October,

Bob Dembkoski ASQ-CQA, CQIA
ASQ Hartford Section Chair 2007-2010
ASQ Deputy Regional Director 2008-2011