In Baldrige’s 2013–2014 Criteria for Performance Excellence, innovation is defined as making meaningful, discontinuous change to products, processes, or organizational effectiveness in order to create new value for stakeholders. So you might not expect to find an example of such innovation in a traditional industry such as nameplates, where two-time Baldrige Award winner Texas Nameplate has been making nameplates that have basically looked the same for almost 70 years.

But Dale Crownover, the president and CEO of the family-owned business started by his father, is a self-described “Baldrige practitioner”; innovation and visionary leadership were concepts he knew well.

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