[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[December 6, 1996]
[Pages 2171-2174]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Presenting the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards
December 6, 1996

    Thank you very much. Secretary Kantor; Mrs. Baldrige; Senator 
Pressler; Congresswoman Slaughter; Congressman Ramstad; my good friend 
Earnie Deavenport; Mary Good--let me thank all of you. And let me say a 
special word of thanks to Arati Prabhakar, the Director of the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, for the work that she has done in 
this Baldrige process. Thank you, ma'am. And Senator Pressler, as you 
leave the United States Senate after a distinguished career, let me 
thank you especially for the work you did to pass the telecommunications 
law, which will help America immeasurably and create hundreds of 
thousands of these kinds of good jobs in the years ahead. Thank you, 
sir.
    I'd also like to thank the Army Band for doing such a good job here 
today. Thank you very much.
    You know, when they were playing the national anthem, which normally 
I sing out of tune at the top of my lungs, but my voice has been a 
little constrained lately--my approval is at an all-time high when I'm 
hoarse and can't speak. [Laughter] I couldn't help thinking, as I was 
listening to the national anthem, what America was like when Francis 
Scott Key wrote that anthem and what he would think about what we have 
just seen today, how proud it would make the people who fought to start 
this country and who worked to hold it together to see what we have 
become after 200 years. And for all of you, I thank you.
    I was listening to all the speakers here, and I was put in mind of 
the first public speech I ever gave as an elected official. Almost 20 
years ago now, I was elected attorney general of my home State, and I 
was invited to the Rotary Club officers installation banquet in Pine 
Bluff, Arkansas, in January of 1977. The banquet started at 6:30. I was 
introduced to speak at 10 minutes to 10. [Laughter] There were about 500 
people there, and all of them but 3 got to talk, and they went home mad. 
[Laughter] But it was a wonderful night. There was entertainment from 
the local school groups, and you know, everybody got to talk. It was 
like it should have been: It was a community event; a lot of people 
talked. And then this fellow got up to introduce me. And I was nervous 
as a cat--my first speech as an elected official. And the first words 
out of his mouth--just how I feel after hearing them speak--he said, 
``You know, we could stop here and have had a very nice evening.'' 
[Laughter] I know he didn't mean it that way. [Laughter] But we could 
stop right here and have had a wonderful, wonderful ceremony.
    This is the 3d year I've had the privilege of honoring the Baldrige 
Quality Award winners, and every year I feel more strongly that this is 
the way America ought to work. This is the way all of our organizations 
ought to work. This is the way our families should work, the way our 
charities should work, the way our religious institutions should work, 
the way our colleges and universities should work, the way our schools 
should work, and the way our Government should work.
    Recognizing companies that have proved that excellence and good 
citizenship are compatible, that understand that business endeavors, 
like life, are much more a journey than a destination--it's a very, very 
special thing for me. And I hope that my presence here helps to get all 
of you the recognition you deserve around the country, and hope that it 
will inspire more and more business people and more and more people in 
every organized form of human endeavor in our Nation to follow your 
lead.
    This is an especially meaningful day for me today also because I 
used to do this with Secretary Kantor's predecessor, Ron Brown, and last 
March we had a ceremony like this at the White House, which was one of 
the last official duties Ron Brown performed before his untimely death 
on his mission to the Balkans. Let

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me say that he's probably smiling down at us today.
    And let me also say how very grateful I am to my long-term friend 
Mickey Kantor for his outstanding job as Secretary of Commerce. First he 
was our trade ambassador, where he negotiated over 200 agreements--
unprecedented record in the history of American trade--everything from 
big agreements like NAFTA and the GATT agreement, over 21 agreements 
with Japan. In each of those areas in the aggregate, our exports to 
Japan have increased 85 percent in those 21 areas. There is no precedent 
for it.
    And I was thinking of, as he was up here talking, too much of what 
Americans hear about public service is negative from time to time. Most 
of the people who work for this Department and most of the people who 
have worked for your Government make America a better place. And Mickey 
Kantor and the people here at the Department of Commerce are shining 
examples of that, and I thank them for it.
    I also want to thank the private sector partners in this endeavor, 
the 28 previous winning companies, the examiners, the Baldrige 
Foundation. For almost 10 years this award has been remarkably 
successful as a public-private partnership. We will have to have more of 
these in the future if America is to meet the challenges of the 21st 
century.
    I'm very pleased that there will be new winners in the categories of 
nonprofit health and education organizations. I can tell you that if you 
look at the percentage of our economy and, more important, the stake in 
our quality of life and our future in health care and education, this is 
coming not a moment too soon.
    Finally, let me say a special word of appreciation to the Vice 
President for the work that he has led in our endeavors to have the 
Federal Government do more of what all of you are doing. Our Government 
has about a quarter of a million fewer people in it than it did the day 
I became President. We've abolished hundreds of programs. We've 
privatized more operations than ever before. And we've been able to 
reduce the deficit by 60 percent and still continue to invest in 
education, in research and technology and environmental protection, the 
things that will keep our country strong in the future.
    I'm proud of the fact that, thanks to you and millions like you, our 
economy is strong and growing stronger every day. Today we learned that 
in November, while there was a small increase in the unemployment rate, 
wage increases continued to come to American workers because of 
increasing productivity. We had 118,000 more jobs, which means in the 
last 3 years and 10 months our economy has produced 11.9 million new 
working opportunities for the American people, something all of you can 
be very, very proud of.
    Now we have to keep this going. I'm very much committed to passing a 
bipartisan balanced budget plan with the Congress which will keep our 
interest rates down, keep our economy growing, and continue to honor our 
commitments to our children, our future, our economy, our parents, and 
the quality of the environment.
    But whatever we do, we know that ultimately American progress will 
rise or fall on the performance of American business and American 
workers. Both large and small, American businesses are the engine that 
will help to carry us into the 21st century. Two decades ago, our 
companies had little competition from abroad. Today, we know we compete 
in the world for jobs and markets. The business community has led the 
way in sensitizing all Americans that we must measure ourselves by high 
standards. We must achieve high global standards. That is what I seek 
for the performance of your Government, for the performance of our 
educational institutions, for every single endeavor in the United 
States.
    ADAC Laboratories' commitment to the customers has resulted in its 
phenomenal turnaround. Just think about tripling your revenues in 3 
years. Now, if we could do that without a tax increase, there would be 
no deficit problem. [Laughter]
    Let me--I applaud Dana Commercial Credit Corporation's commitment to 
its customers, its employees, and its community for the style of 
management that encourages employees to act on their own ideas and for 
your financial support of the Toledo School Board. Now, let me say that 
Mr. Morcott and I have been friends for a long time, and the Dana 
Corporation has a different sort of plant in Arkansas, one of the most 
highly roboticized plants in the United States, making truck 
transmissions. One of the things I liked about that place the first time 
I ever visited it was that there were no parking spaces dedicated to the 
bigwigs. So if the plant manager showed up late, he might have to walk

[[Page 2173]]

a block and a half to work. [Laughter] However, I rejected that 
suggestion for the State Capitol when I was Governor--[laughter]--which 
just goes to show you, we all have work to do. [Laughter]
    Custom Research Corporation has proved you don't have to be the 
biggest to be the best; 97 percent of a clientele being delighted is 
something that any organization would be delighted to achieve.
    When I heard them reading the measures of how they define their 
success and they talked about the--talking about all their employee 
endeavors, and I saw all of the cheers coming from all of you as well as 
from Trident Precision Manufacturing over there with their banners, 
again I say, think about the idea that every organization we're involved 
in ought to work this way, if we invest in training and education as 
Trident has. And one of the things I want to say about them that I 
especially appreciate that was not mentioned: In this era of downsizing, 
I want to commend you for hiring people who had worked for larger 
companies and who were downsized. A lot of people who have been 
downsized still have outsized contributions to make to the American 
economy and to American society. And small businesses are going to have 
to take up that slack. I thank you for making that a priority.
    Just think: satisfied customers; energized employees who are 
involved; respect and commitment to the communities in which you're 
involved in; investing in technology and the future; still making a 
profit; and at least by the evidence we've seen here, having a good time 
doing it. If every family in every organization of any kind in this 
country worked that way, we wouldn't have very many problems in the 
United States. That's the message I want to go across America today, and 
I thank you for sending it loud and clear every day in your lives.
    Let me finally close by asking one more thing of you. America needs 
more strong companies like this and more organizations like this to be 
prepared for the next century. I believe with all my heart we are 
entering an age of greater human possibility than ever. It means in 
simple terms to me that in a place like America, more children will have 
a chance to grow up and live out their dreams than ever before. It means 
if we do the right thing, we will grow stronger and more prosperous 
while helping more people all around the world to do things that we take 
for granted now but which would fulfill their dreams and their God-given 
potential in a way that has never been possible before.
    But to do it we have to understand that in times when things are 
changing rapidly, we have to be able to open our eyes and open our ears 
and open our hearts; we have to be able to think anew and act anew; we 
have to be dedicated to the idea of community, the idea of partnership, 
the idea that we can each have more personal, individual fulfillment 
when we work together with other people to help them achieve the same 
objectives.
    That's the only way we can move able-bodied people from welfare to 
work. A lot of you are going to have to help with that. We passed a law 
that says that able-bodied people can only draw welfare so long, but 
what are they going to do? Go into the street, or go into the work 
force? Every State ought to be willing to give those welfare checks to 
employers as job subsidies to move more people from welfare to work, and 
every vital company ought to be willing to examine themselves to see 
what they could do, because we don't have the money, and we shouldn't 
have these large-scale job programs funded by the Government with only 
welfare workers in them.
    We want to change a whole culture here and move people into the 
mainstream of American life. And that can best be done by a company 
hiring one or two or three and then another company doing the same 
thing, until we have a ripple effect all across America and we don't 
have a welfare system and an unemployment system anymore, we have a 
system that deals with people when they're temporarily out of the work 
force, organizes those who can move into the work force, and helps those 
who, through no fault of their own, are simply unable to help 
themselves. That is an America that would be worthy of the pride, the 
honor, and the support of every single citizen of this country. We 
cannot do it unless the private sector is a partner.
    We cannot help our schools to meet the highest standards of 
excellence unless those of you who understand the world in which we are 
living and the one toward which we are moving demand that we have, yes, 
a lot of local control and more schools that are committed to kind of 
creative excellence in the way that you are, but we also measure 
performance by national standards of excellence, and we know that the 
measurements are good. Because I believe all

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children can learn, and I am tired of people hiding behind various 
bureaucratic hedges to avoid measuring up and giving all our children a 
chance to learn. You can lead the way, and we need you to do it.
    We have participated in a celebration of what is best about America. 
You have all thrilled me beyond measure. I loved seeing all the 
different things you did. I had the best seat in the house today. The 
Secretary and Earnie and I, we didn't have to worry about what we were 
going to say. We didn't even have to worry about our constituents the 
way these folks did. They were the political leaders here today. 
[Laughter]
    I got to spend this whole time looking into your faces. Those are 
the looks I want to see on the faces of every American child, and you 
can help us do it.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:35 p.m. at the Sheraton Washington 
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Margaret Baldrige, widow of former 
Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige; Earnest Deavenport, president, 
Malcolm Baldrige Award Foundation; Mary L. Good, Under Secretary of 
Commerce for Technology; and Southwood (Woody) J. Morcott, chairman and 
chief executive officer, Dana Commercial Credit Corp.