(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality’s 2008 World Conference on Quality and Improvement, May 5-7, 2008 in Houston, Texas, will provide attendees with a myriad of improvement opportunities. More than 90 breakout sessions are planned ranging from topics on business excellence, knowledge transfer, generational diversity, virtual universes, and innovation application.

Many of the 2008 sessions were designed to address this year’s most important quality topics. A snapshot of sessions include:

• The Cost of Less than Perfect
• Driving Excellence through Corporate Culture
• Buzzwords or a New Reality for Quality Leaders?
• Building Virtual, Global Work Teams
• Applying Lean Six Sigma to Environmental Management
• Product Safety, Warnings and Recalls
• Strategy Deployment for Optimizing Lean Six Sigma

Patrick Townsend, who will be speaking on May 5, at 12:30 p.m., not only writes and talks about “this quality stuff,” he has done it. He has twice led the definition, implementation and maintenance of quality and leadership efforts. These efforts have been successful, and have also included 100 percent employee involvement. Townsend brings original ideas to the discussion from the idea that leadership is a subset of love to the methodology for a rapidly evolving complete quality process (CQP) that involves every person on the payroll in the improvement of everything the organization does, using every available tool.

Michael Stanleigh, who will be speaking on May 5 at 3:00 p.m., is considered one of the leading experts in linking the fields of strategy, quality, and innovation. He delivers his research-based, humorous, and enjoyable presentations around the world on the topics of strategic project and quality leadership, as well as innovation. Stanleigh holds various leadership and board positions including director of project and quality management at SheridanCorporate’s Innovation Center and is a faculty member at Memorial University.

Glenn Walters, who will speak on May 7, 11:00 a.m., is a proven champion for performance excellence who uses a combination of facts, stories, humor, and magic to engage and stimulate his audiences. Walters has practiced, taught, and consulted on quality, management, and leadership issues for more than 30 years.  Much of his current work is centered on workplace engagement and productivity and how fun in the workplace is essential for sustained organizational performance excellence.

To see the entire conference schedule, visit http://wcqi.asq.org.