It was a big, hairy, audacious goal for the $1.4 billionElevations Credit Union.

In fact, it was so audacious that Gerry Agnes, president/CEO, seriously doubted his Boulder,Colo.-based cooperative would achieve it before the sun set on hiscareer. That goal was for Elevations Credit Union to receive theMalcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which is what some callthe Academy Award of business.

But on Nov. 10, 2014, Agnes got the congratulatory call fromU.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker that Elevations CreditUnion had indeed achieved its big, hairy, audacious goal.

What's more, Elevations Credit Union was the first credit unionto have received the Baldrige Award. The 2014 Baldrige Award waspresented to the credit union during a ceremony at the Quest for Excellenceconference in Baltimore, Md., held earlier this month.

“When we introduced and adopted that goal, my comment was, it'slikely that this may not happen in my career, and that's OK,” Agnessaid. “It's not about receiving the award. It's about gettingbetter tomorrow than we are today. We were obviously very pleasedthat we received it as early as we did…on our very firstapplication.”

He first heard about the Baldrige Award in 2000 and wasimpressed by the companies such as the Ritz Carlton and Motorolathat had been past recipients of the award, which is considered thehighest level of national recognition for performance excellencethat a U.S. organization can receive.

Malcolm Baldrige was the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1981until his death in 1987. He was a proponent of quality managementas a key to the country's prosperity and long-term strength. Inrecognition of his contributions, Congress named the award in hishonor in 1987.

In July 2008, Agnes was being interviewed for the president/CEOposition at Elevations Credit Union by a board of directors thatwas very concerned about the impact of the Great Recession.Consumers weren't buying or borrowing, membership growth was anemicand employee morale wasn't strong. So, he introduced the Baldrigeconcept and how it could be applied to make the Coloradocooperative stronger.

As illustrated in the chart to the left, Elevations Credit Unionbeat out competitors in several performance areas.

“The board was looking for a bold new direction, and I ended upbecoming the successful CEO candidate in August 2008,” he said.

But in the early days of its Baldrige journey, the credit unionslogged through some challenging times.

“Shortly after I got here, we wrote down our capital from 8.5%to 7%,” Agnes said. “Our environment with our regulator was very,very difficult. We fairly quickly restored that relationship andour capital, but it was a very difficult time.”

Additionally, in December 2009, Elevations closed a Denver areabranch and laid off 13 employees, in part because local retail andresidential developments were never built. At that time, Agnes saidhe didn't see market conditions changing substantially over thenext several years.

“Looking back, people were asking, 'Why would you invest all ofthe time, the money and the human capital into this big, hairy,audacious goal at this critical point when you should be worryingabout surviving?'” he said. “Survival was never a question in ourmind, but thriving in any economic environment was. This investmentwas the right investment at the right time. It couldn't have beenbetter for us.”

In simple terms, the Baldrige program provides a framework fororganizations to assess and improve their operations based onmanagement by facts to achieve continuous performance excellence inthe critical areas of leadership, strategy, customers, measurement,analysis and knowledge management, workforce, operations andresults.

An important part of the Baldrige methodology, Agnes explained,is that it is a very rigorous and disciplined process that requiresvalidations, which are audited by industry experts.

“The Baldrige framework asks 255 very important questions thatevery leader should be asking in any organization,” he said. “Andif you answer them honestly, you can make some tremendousprogress.”

For Elevations Credit Union, its progress facilitated by theBaldrige program eventually produced some impressive results.

For example, the credit union's mortgage production volumeincreased from 1,124 loans in 2011 to 2,307 in 2014 and it is nowthe largest credit union mortgage lender in Colorado.

What's more, despite the tepid economic recovery, thecooperative's total loan portfolio grew from $613 million in 2010to $895 million in 2014, according to NCUA financial performancereports. Elevations Credit Union also reported a 29% annual growthrate since 2012 in wealth management revenue and a 40% annualgrowth rate since 2012 in business deposits, which are also helpingto strengthen its revenue diversification.

From 2009 to 2013, Elevations Credit Union has also seen anannual membership growth rate of 6% compared to a 1% annualmembership growth rate among its peer group average.

The Colorado cooperative also moved the needle in net promotersystem surveys, which measure and compare member engagement andloyalty. Its NPS relationship score increased from 35 to 50 since2011, and its NPS score for overall transactions improved from 52in 2011 to 65 in 2014. For new product transactions, the NPS scorewent from just over 60 in 2011 to 80 in 2014.

Months after educating the executive team and entire staff aboutthe Baldrige framework, employees began the detailed grunt work toanswer the Baldrige 255 questions on how the organization operatedin the critical areas of leadership, strategy, customers,measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce,operations and results.

In those critical areas, the credit union's employees formedtheir answers by evaluating every single process within theirorganization that opened the opportunity to create systematic,repeatable processes that would be superior in the marketplace andcan be readily duplicated, Agnes explained.

Elevations Credit Union President/CEO Gerry Agnes, picturedhere, said he hopes other credit unions can learn from his staff'sBaldrige journey.

But what enabled employees to answer those critical questionswas the fact that the Baldrige framework was a conduit that led toa safe environment where they could speak honestly.

For example, before Agnes became CEO, it was taboo for employeesto complain about the problems and limitations of the creditunion's core operating system because the previous leadership wasmarried to it.

Soon after Agnes began talking about the Baldrige process andcreating a comfortable environment for employees to answer theBaldrige framework questions truthfully, an executive at a planningmeeting asked a key question that should have been asked yearsago.

“The question asked was, 'When are we going to address our coreoperating system?'” he said. “There were probably 15 to 18 peoplein the room, and you could hear a pin drop because someone justasked a question that was taboo to ask before.”

So, following the Baldrige framework of gathering informationand facts, employees were asked how the core operating systemallowed them to help members. It turned out everyone in the creditunion thought the operating system was horrible.

“So when the staff started seeing the question about the coresystem asked and answered and no one got reprimanded or fired, theyrealized it was safe to ask these questions,” Agnes said. “Thebottom line is that the staff wants to be seen. They want to beheard. They want to be valued. Once they saw we started listeningand taking action on their recommendations, the momentum within theorganization started accelerating in the right direction.”

Although the Baldrige process is not for everyone, Agnesbelieves many credit unions, regardless of their asset size, canbenefit from it.

Companies that receive the Baldrige Award are required to sharetheir learnings with others.

On June 4 and Oct. 2, Elevations Credit Union will be hostingfull-day sessions to share the lessons learned along its Baldrigejourney at the Wilderness Peaks Service Center in Boulder. For moreinformation, visit elevationscu.com/sharingdays.

“It is our hope that other credit unions can learn from ourexperience and become better at what they do for their membership,”Agnes said.