A little enjoyment is always important. I recently read a blog post titled 15 Facts That Will Make You Laugh.

A few of those facts were:
• There is a Welsh town with a 58-letter name:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
• You used to be able to send children by mail in the U.S.
• German chocolate cake originated in Dallas.

Reading the blog caused me to think about some interesting facts about Baldrige. I’ll start with some about the Baldrige family and then include some about the Baldrige Excellence Framework/Criteria.

The 26th U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Malcolm Baldrige. Credit: Baldrige family.

The Baldrige family

Malcolm “Mac” Baldrige, as most readers of this blog know, was the 26th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the person honored in the name of the Baldrige Program.

But did you know:
• His full name was Howard Malcolm Baldrige Jr.
• He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1988.
• His father was a U.S. congressman from Nebraska.
• His brother, Robert Baldridge, changed the spelling of his last name because he was tired of people adding the extra “d.”
• His sister, Letitia “Tish” Baldrige, was Jacqueline Kennedy’s chief of staff in the White House. She subsequently became an etiquette advisor and wrote numerous books on etiquette. She was a member of the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award board and a friend of the program until she passed away in 2012. (She was also quite irreverent when the opportunity presented itself.)

And that Mac Baldrige and his wife, Midge, had two daughters, Megan and Molly, who continue to be friends of the program and support the Baldrige Foundation?

President Ronald Reagan and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige. Credit: Baldrige family

Mac and Midge Baldrige. Credit: Baldrige family

Mac Baldrige. Credit: Baldrige family

Letitia Baldrige. Credit: Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

Baldrige criteria

Again, as most readers of this blog know, the Baldrige Framework has undergone significant revision over its almost 40-year history to always remain at the leading edge of validated leadership and performance practice.

But did you know:
• The first set of criteria had 42 items (compared to 17 in 2022–2024).
• The Baldrige Core Values and Concepts, although always embedded in the Baldrige criteria, were first introduced in 1992, five years after the program started.
• The Organizational Profile, defining the organization and its strategic environment, first appeared in 2001.
• The rubric for measuring process maturity—approach, deployment, learning, integration, or ADLI—was first introduced in 2004.
• The rubric for measuring results maturity—levels, trends, comparisons, integration, or LeTCI (let’s see)—was first introduced in 2008.
• The award criteria were separated from the more educational Baldrige Excellence Framework in 2024.

One final tidbit

Did you know that the Baldrige Program has only had three directors to date? The first two were chemists with analytical backgrounds but no business degrees. The third and current director has a business degree and small business experience.

Baldrige program directors, left to right: Curt Reimann (first director), Bob Fangmeyer (current director), and Harry Hertz (director emeritus). Credit: Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

Published April 29, 2025, in Blogrige: The Official Baldrige Blog.