Laura Longmire

Laura Longmire, our founder and president, has served in executive level positions in both industry and non-profit organizations.  As the former Chief Learning Officer for the Stupski Family Foundation, Laura was responsible for knowledge management and evaluations of the key approaches that enable breakthrough improvements of systemic reform in large urban school districts.  Prior to joining the Stupski Foundation, she was the associate director of quality in education at the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC).  While at  APQC, she co-directed the national program of BiE IN (Baldrige in Education Initiative), led performance consulting for school districts, and provided training in quality improvement methods for educators. In addition to providing advisory services for many large urban school districts such as Houston Independent School District, Aldine Independent School District (Texas), Rio Rancho Public Schools (N.M.), Eastside Union High School System (California), and Chicago Public Schools, Laura coached Chugach School District in Alaska, the 2001 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Laura began her career as an educator with specialties in the fields of science and athletics. In 1980 she took the principles of teaming and coaching and used them in Operations Management for Texas Instruments. In her 15 years with Texas Instruments she was a leader in the development and deployment of Total Quality Management, high-performance work teams, and benchmarking. She was a core team member in the organization’s quality journey that culminated with the winning of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1992. In 1994 Laura joined KPMG-Peat Marwick as quality officer and national director of benchmarking and best practices. During 1995 and 1996, she led KPMG’s Baldrige applications and site visits. During her tenure with KPMG, Laura led quality improvement client engagements for Xerox, Citicorp, Virginia Power and Electric, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pillsbury, Reflectone, the Department of Education, and the National Reconnaissance Office.  Laura joined Clarke American, a financial document printer and service company, as vice president of quality and human resources in 1998. She led Clarke American’s quality improvement teams, customer service strategies and measurements, balanced scorecard implementation, and deployment of high-performance work teams. Clarke American won the Texas Award for Performance Excellence and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2001.

Laura has served as a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Examiner (1995-2001) and as a judge for the Texas state quality award (1998-2003). She has published various articles and the book Benchmarking and Best Practices in the Public Sector as well as provided Congressional testimony for quality-driven improvements. Laura earned her bachelor’s degree in science from Missouri Southern State and her MBA from the University of Dallas.