Director, Monfort Institute

John Latham has taken his more than 30 years of experience with driving high performance and landed it at the University of Northern Colorado's Monfort Institute. The Institute is part of the Monfort College of Business, a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient (2004). It's only natural that someone who has spent most of his career on the Baldrige process and maximizing performance would find himself at the only business school ever to have received the Baldrige Award.

John led the startup of the Monfort Institute, which has since its beginning been a major force in organizing Baldrige Award recipients and doing research on these high performing companies. John has headed up the research on what high-performing organizations can do to maintain the gain and take it to the next level. Participants in the research have included Baldrige Award recipients in manufacturing, service, healthcare, education, and small business.

Well-traveled throughout the nation and world, John's expertise in building high performance took him to organizations such as Boeing, Kawasaki, British Airways, Motorola, The Ritz- Carlton, TATA Sons Ltd. (India), Department of Energy, and the American Society for Training and Development. He served as Vice President of Corporate Quality and Business Excellence for a $1.3 billion in vitro diagnostics manufacturer with operations in 40 countries. His work has focused on helping executives design and lead strategic change initiatives - from strategy to results - in the areas of strategic leadership, execution excellence, and organizational learning. He now brings that expertise to the Monfort Institute where he helps not only executives, but managers, director, and owners achieve high performance.

John has served as a Judge for the Colorado Performance Excellence award, the Department of Veterans Affairs Carey award, and the U.S. Army Communities of Excellence (ACOE) Award. In addition, he served on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners for nine years from 1996 to 2005. John is a senior member of the American Society for Quality and is a Certified Quality Engineer. He is the co-author of Baldrige User's Guide: Organization Diagnosis, Design, and Transformation (4th edition) published by John Wiley and Sons.

Email: jlatham@MonfortInstitute.org