About ASQ St. Louis
Dedicated to Championing Quality in the St. Louis Bi-State Region
Message from the Section Chair
Welcome to the 2008/2009 ASQ season! It is with great pleasure that I look forward to serving as your Section Chair. I’m looking forward to all of our coming events and hope to see many of you as often as possible.
How about news of some recent successes for our section? I am very proud to announce that we will be hosting the 2010 ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement! This is the first time for this event to be hosted by St. Louis in approximately 50 years. My thanks to Rob Herhold and Chris Anderson for their assistance in helping to secure this event for St. Louis. You will be hearing much more about this event in the coming months, but mark your calendars for the first week of May 2010. There will be many opportunities for St. Louis members to attend the conference as volunteer and earn RU credits from ASQ.
Older Than Dirt
by Bob Deufel, Section Historian
What could be older? Older than what? Our beloved ASQ celebrated its 50th anniversary back in 1996. But the St. Louis Section is older by a month. Back in 1944 Les Kauffman (our Kauffman Award) was encouraged to set up the “St. Louis Quality Control Society.” That was accomplished in February 1946 at Washington University with ten men who wanted to promote quality control before the war. Kauffman, of the American Stove Company, became vice-chairman with Lewis Walkup of Western Cartridge as chairman.
On February 15, 1946, the constitution was adopted and the first officers elected. Les Kauffman was the unanimous choice as president with Korte Pfabe of Carter Carburetor as vice-president and A.F. Madaus of White-Rogers as secretary-treasurer. Early years were difficult as expenses always seemed to exceed income. Meeting places were hard to find and meeting notices took the form of personal contributions by the officers. The society survived its growing pains and the membership continued to increase. Kauffman served as president until May of 1947, when Kort Pfabe took office. In the beginning local talent provided the programs, but Kort was able to secure nationally known speakers, and even present a one day clinic. He was the first Fellow of the St. Louis Section.
Membership increased from 33 in 1946-47 to 88 in 1947-48. During this period the St. Louis Society joined the national organization which was chartered a month later than St. Louis. The end of Kort Pfabe’s term was followed by Gene Fisher from Bell Telephone. Gene was later elected national president of the American Society for Quality Control. During that time he revised the budgeting practices and formalized the record keeping. He also started the Society’s educational program, offering them to the membership for free.
In 1954 the membership climbed to 114 and welcomed its first woman member, Mrs. Faith French of the Army Finance Center. In 1950, the Society sponsored the printing of a training manual for quality control. The co-authors were Joseph Movshin and Rudolph Freedman, both of Alco Valve. The manual was a great success and sold to other sections throughout the country. Movshin’s wife and daughter were honored at one of our meetings a few years ago, and a copy of the manual has been filed with the ASQ archives at the University of Illinois.
The St. Louis Section has not lost sight of its original purpose, as it continually strives to promote quality control principles. There are many more issues that have been accomplished than those recognized here. And many more continue to point to continuous improvement and customer satisfaction as a way to promote quality.
And there are more successes to report. Our section was presented with the Section Gold Excellence and the Section Total Quality Awards for the second year in a row at the 2008 ASQ World Conference. My thanks to our past and present Leadership Committee members and volunteers for their work in earning these awards. We had a successful Spring Quality Conference in 2008, although the financial return was rather disappointing. In addition, we carried out our various service commitments to our members throughout the past year, and we continue to hold our place in the top 15 ASQ sections as far as the size of our membership.
Your Section 1304 Leadership Committee is listed on this website, along with their contact information in case you have a question in their area of responsibility. I’d like to welcome some new LC members and I am excited to have them joining the team. Resa Manson was elected as Section Treasurer last April, Kim Rochetti is the Education Chair, Denise Arthur is helping Kim and is also the Awards & Nominating Chair, Randy Thompson is the Section Management Plan Chair, and Patty Kallal is the Communication Chair. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the LC members that have recently left the team for their years of service to the section.
I think you will enjoy the special Membership Meeting that we’ve put together for September. You will be served steaks (grilled by your Leadership Committee members), your favorite cold beverages, an assortment of side dishes, and an extended networking period to create new relationships and to reconnect with old friends. Our speaker will be talking about his encounter with a grizzly bear as he discusses Workplace Resilience.
Our other programs are coming together for the year and I think you will enjoy what we are offering. My goal is to have a good mix of technical and non-technical programs. The October Membership Meeting is looking interesting and a night of fun is planned with presents for all on December 2nd, with Jim Ebone providing some entertainment as the Master of Ceremonies for our Trivia Night. We are finalizing a plant tour for our January Membership Meeting. In addition, it looks like we will be able to accomplish one of my long-time goals by offering some workshop opportunities throughout the year. My thanks to Kim and Denise for helping to put these workshops together.
Our annual Spring Quality Conference will once again be held at the Clayton Crowne Plaza Hotel. The conference will be on April 2nd and 3rd, and as in the past, we will offer ASQ exams, pre-conference workshops, keynote speakers, a reception and 3 or 4 tracks of breakout sessions. Steve Hyland will be providing you with the details in the coming months. We were able to negotiate a better deal with the Crowne Plaza for next year, including free parking…which is a nice perk in downtown Clayton.
Again, I look forward to seeing you at our various events throughout the ASQ year.
Sincerely,
Steve Mundwiller CQM/OE, CQA, CQPA
ISO 9001 Principal Auditor
“Since it is a joy to have the benefit of what is good, it is a greater one to experience what is better.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749 –1832
