Excellence Conference & Celebration

Chris purchased Griffin Mechanical, LLC in 2010. He holds a Master Mechanical license with the state of Tennessee. Before Griffin Mechanical, Chris spent five years as the vice president of a local mechanical construction and service company.

Chris holds an MBA from Belmont University and a BA from Penn State University. He served as a Ranger qualified infantry officer (Captain) in the US Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. He is a life member of DAV.

Chris is the past president of the Plumbing, Heating, & Cooling Contractors (PHCC), Middle Tennessee Chapter. Since 2008, he has volunteered as a Master Examiner, Team Leader, and Judge for the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCPE).

Chris lives in Middle Tennessee with his wife and two daughters. His free time is spent practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and attending his daughters competitive cheer competitions.

Pal's Business Excellence Institute

David Jones is Vice President for Pal’s Business Excellence Institute (2015 TNCPE Excellence Award Winner) where he both instructs and consults. With more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing, health care, and education, David is passionate about helping organizations improve their performance, particularly through the use of the Baldrige framework. His expertise includes Operational Excellence, Management, Leadership, Performance Excellence, Strategic Planning, Lean, Manufacturing, Marketing, and ISO 9000 and 13485. He has extensive hands-on experience in the Baldrige Excellence Framework having served twelve years on the Baldrige Board of Examiners and as a training facilitator. He also served twenty years with the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence as an examiner, judge, and training facilitator, and one year with the Virginia Senate Productivity and Quality Award as an examiner and trainer.

In 2007 David co-founded Edamar, Inc., an award-winning educational products company serving the K-12 science classroom with innovative hands-on teaching tools.

David has been an adjunct instructor in the College of Business and Technology at East Tennessee State University and in the MBA program at Milligan College; and he serves on the Advisory Board for the Mayberry Chair of Excellence at Tennessee Technological University. David holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tennessee.

BaldrigeCoach

KAY KENDALL is CEO and principal of BaldrigeCoach, Inc., a private consulting firm in Texas and a member of the Baldrige Connect program. The firm predominately works with organizations committed to using the Baldrige Excellence Framework to increase employee engagement and customer loyalty, and to improve results. BaldrigeCoach has worked with 21 Baldrige Award recipients, 38 top-level state award recipients, and 16 AHCA Gold Award recipients as clients.

Kay is an Alumni Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners from 1996 through 2018. She served a three-year term on the Baldrige Panel of Judges. She also served five years as a Judge for CAPE and eight years as a Judge for the (former) VA Carey Program. She has served on the PiPEx Panel of Judges since 2012 and is the current chair. She has also supported various Alliance Programs as an “added” examiner and was a Master Examiner for the AHCA/NCAL program for four years. She served five years as a Director-at-Large for the Alliance. She has facilitated examiner training at the national level and for several Alliance programs. She has served as a Technical Editor for the Baldrige program since 2002. She was also on the Alliance Panel of Judges Standardization Committee in 2016. 

Kay holds a BS degree in Microbiology from Purdue University and an MBA from the University of Arizona.

Pal's Business Excellence Institute

David McClaskey is the President of Pal’s Business Excellence Institute (BEI), which he co-founded in 2000 with Thom Crosby, Pal’s Sudden Service President and CEO. Pal’s BEI, the 2015 winner of the TNCPE Excellence Award, inspires, enables, and supports leaders to create extraordinary organizations through operational excellence. It does this through teaching and consulting with organizations of all types on world-class management practices based on those used by the Baldrige-winning Pal’s Sudden Service. In short, people attend Pal’s BEI, 100% use one or more things they learned within 4 weeks, and their organizations improve.

As a Baldrige expert and performance excellence consultant for more than 40 years, David has worked with thousands of organizations from every sector, including health care, service, small business, government, manufacturing, education, and non-profit. He works with organizations that want to be extraordinary. He has helped seven companies (including Ritz-Carlton) to win eight Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards; and assisted Florida Power and Light to be the first company outside of Japan to win the Deming Prize, Japan’s national quality award. David helped develop and deliver the original training for the Baldrige Board of Examiners in 1988. He served as a judge for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for three years and as a TNCPE judge for twelve years. In 2011 his outstanding leadership in the pursuit of performance excellence was recognized with the TNCPE Ned R. McWherter Leadership Award and by the American Society for Quality with its prestigious international E. L. Grant Award for the development and presentation of meritorious educational programs in quality management.

David holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering.

Blaze Performance Solutions

In the past 30 years Kent has helped 100’s of organizations gain 100’s of Millions dollars through growth in top line revenue, sales growth, client acquisition, process, productivity and quality improvements, and reduction in turnover. 

He has conducted over 2,000 days of Strategy & Execution Consulting, Leadership Development, and process improvement work for these organizations. His clients (past and present) include FedEx, Nissan, Honda, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Wal-Mart, Nike, Eastman Chemical, U.S. Army, NHC, Covenant Transport, USXPress, ABF Freight, ServiceMaster, First Tennessee Bank, Volunteer Bank, Jewelry Television, Pilot, MLGW, Halton, NGK Metals and The State of Tennessee to name a few.

Kent has lived all over America and in Europe He graduated from the University of Alabama; where he completed a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance and an MBA (all in four years) graduating with Honors.

Kent’s work experience has varied tremendously. Prior to Co-Founding BPS he spent 24 years with Franklin Covey as a Managing Director leading a large Sales and Consulting Team, Consultant and Client Partner. He was a Soviet Intelligence Analyst in Europe, a Financial Manager and Operations Leader with a Fortune 100 company along with several other jobs along the way.

Kent and his wife (the love of his life) have been married for 35 years and have three amazing children. He loves swimming, running, cycling, Marital Arts, working out, and hanging out with his family. Kent continues to be goal oriented earning a black belt on his 40th birthday, running a marathon for his 45th birthday, completing a mile swim for his 50th and recently completing multiple Sprint Triathalons. 

Kent’s new Leadership book “Everyone Can Lead” is available on Amazon.