First, inspired business performance; then, Obama fires up Dems for Bennet

Tom Mauro's big splash for Colorado Performance Excellence is next week. He hands out 2010 Timberline Awards to Elevations Credit Union in Boulder and the VA Health Administration Center, Denver, for continous performance improvement in 2010.

Also four Foothills-level awards for beginners in the CPEx program to AlloSource in Centennial, Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, the Poudre Fire Authority in Fort Collins, and the S.M. Stoller Legacy Management Program in Broomfield.

The awards mark the work done by participants in the statewide CPEx program which uses Baldrige National Quality Award criteria to improve business performance of an organization.

The all-day program at the Marriott South at Park Meadows, just west of Interstate 25 and Lincoln Avenue in South metro Denver, costs $275 per person for attendees from profit-making firms, and $250 per person for nonprofits. The speeches and seminar tracks explain how Baldrige criteria measure business excellence  and improvement.

Mauro's organziation has been spending the year trying to develop ways for more Colorado small businesses to become a part of the Baldrige Quality Award competition. He will announce the results of that effort during this ninth annual CPEx Quest for Excellence event.

*** 

President Barack Obama fired up Sen. Michael Bennet's troops in a telephone town hall Thursday night, telling Bennet volunteers: "There couldn't be a better cause right now because obviously this is a tough election.

"We've got a lot of headwinds ... the economy is still tough in Colorado and around the country.... We inherited, both Michael and me, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But working together, you know we have been able to stop the size of job losses, stabilize the economy, get small bsuiness its financing, get our economy growing again.

"And Michael has been a critical part of that work in the Senate each and every day.!"

I was invited to listen because I contributed a small amount to Bennet's campaign. It was fascinating hearing the president of the United States speak over the phone. And Obama spoke with the same cadence and pronunciation that are mimicked so well on Saturday Night Live each week. You had to laugh.

Of course, you could push a button on your phone to volunteer your own boots on the ground during these last few days of Bennet's close race. I pushed the button, but am still waiting a call from the campaign to get my own feet out there walking for him.

Its hard to run a government or a campaign like a Baldrige-quality business.

But I think at least this government keeps trying.