Applying Baldrige to Our Business

Freese and Nichols’ commitment to quality and continuous improvement is demonstrated by the presidential Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the highest level of recognition for performance excellence in the United States. In 2010, we became the first engineering firm to earn the Baldrige Award, and in 2024 we became one of the few organizations in any industry to earn the award a second time.

For nearly three decades, our firm has applied the Baldrige program’s integrated management framework and assessment tools to improve practices and measure results, strengthening our business to continue delivering exceptional client service. A crucial aspect of our Baldrige journey is the continuous improvement of processes, driven by valuable feedback from clients and staff. This collaborative approach enables Freese and Nichols to meet the highest standards of engineering and planning excellence.

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Download Our Baldrige Tools

The Baldrige program’s integrated management framework and assessments have helped our firm measure and improve our business practices. One of the ways we are successful at this is by prioritizing communication with all employees about our business principles, values and processes in a variety of ways, including the use of several visual tools that are incorporated into our day-to-day tasks and interactions, some of which are displayed at many staff desks across our firm.

Use our tools below as examples to help inspire what you develop for your own organization.

Baldrige Is How We Do Business

Incorporating continuous improvements across multiple areas helps us operate with Baldrige-level quality. This graphic reminds our firm that each effort is connected to the others and necessary for our firm’s success.

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LEADS Values

Our firm values guide everything we do, from decision-making to client engagement to individual behaviors across our company. Summarized in the graphic below with the acronym “LEADS,” these LEADS Values are an integral part of the staff experience at Freese and Nichols and frequently referred to in various settings.

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Vision Story

Every five years, we update our firm’s Vision Story, which ties together elements from strategies and goals developed for our focus areas: People, Opportunity and Performance. It’s one way we summarize our efforts to fulfill our firm’s vision to “Be the Firm of Choice for Clients and Employees.”

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Zipper Approach

One way we maintain long-term client relationships is through our “Zipper Approach,” which matches peer-to-peer relationships between our staff and clients for a continuity of service. While other firms may use a similar approach, we have put a special emphasis on this for more than a decade.

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Key Focus Indicators

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Market Scan

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Contact a Baldrige Presenter

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Brian Coltharp | President and CEO

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Cindy Milrany | Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Administrative Officer

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Gwen Perez | Chief Financial Officer

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Thomas Haster | Chief Business Development Officer for Water

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Alan Greer | Chief Business Development Officer for Infrastructure

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Brandon Huxford | Group Manager

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Mazen Kawasmi | Group Manager