Fond du Lac, Wis. — Marian College honored four businesses and one individual at the college’s 24th annual Business & Industry Awards Jan. 25.
The guest speaker was Sr. Mary Jean Ryan, FSM, CEO of SSM Health Care of St. Louis. SSM is one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the United States. It has 23,300 employees and 5,000 affiliated physicians serving in 20 hospitals, including, in Wisconsin, St. Marys Hospital Medical Center in Madison, St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo, and Stoughton Hospital, and three nursing homes.
SSM Health Care is the first health care organization to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s premier award for performance excellence and quality achievement. Ryan has been named one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare magazine. She was the highest ranked woman on Modern Healthcare’s list, the first health system CEO in the list’s top 10, and the first person outside the U.S. government to make the list.
The following Business & Industry Awards were presented:
• Business of the Year: RB Royal Industries, Fond du Lac. RB Royal designs and manufactures custom hose and tubing assemblies as well as precision-machined products for such applications as boat engines, industrial spraying equipment, generators and welders. The company is ISO 9001: 2000-certified. The company is heavily involved in developing a Lean Enterprise culture for continuous improvement and workplace organization. Its recently constructed facility is built for cellular manufacturing, including a product development center separate from the regular manufacturing area. RB Royal has embarked on a marketing campaign to create a brand based on its new tag line, “Manufacturing Confidence.”
• Economic Development Award: Berbee Information Networks Corporation. Berbee seeks to be the trusted extension of its clients’ Information Technology teams so that its clients find success in applying technology solutions to real business opportunities. Berbee serves commercial, government, higher education, and nonprofit customers, focusing on helping them design, implement, and manage the technology infrastructure needed to support these organizations. It is one of only a few technology companies nationwide to have achieved the highest level of partnership with three of the IT industry’s leaders — Cisco Systems, IBM and Microsoft. The company has experienced 30-percent growth in revenue each of its 12 years of existence. The company has facilities in Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton and Wausau and throughout the Midwest.
• International Business Award: Johnson Controls, Milwaukee. Johnson Controls is the second leading manufacturer of automobile seating and interiors worldwide, putting seating, overhead systems, electronics, cockpits or door systems in more than 35 million vehicles made by every major auto manufacturer. Johnson Controls is also the leading manufacturer of replacement automotive batteries in the world, and a global market leader in facility management and control. IndustryWeek magazine recently named Johnson Controls one of the 50 best manufacturing companies in the United States. The company is a member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable, one of only 14 companies to spend more than $1 billion annually on goods and services from minority-owned firms. Johnson Controls won the 2004 World Environment Center’s Gold Award for international corporate achievement in sustainable development.
• Regional Media Award: Winnebago B2B, Oshkosh. Winnebago B2B is a monthly business magazine covering the Fox Cities, Oshkosh and Fond du Lac areas. The magazine highlights business best practices so its readers can take concepts not in their particular areas of business and apply them to themselves where appropriate. The magazine provides an in-depth look at issues affecting business in this area, whether those issues are local, regional, national or even international.
• George Becker Business Spirit Award: Virginia Gilmore ’98. Gilmore is a believer in the concept of compassionate listening, in which participants in a conflict can come to see one another as human, instead of being the protagonist or antagonist in a conflict, and servant leadership, the idea that being a leader requires serving others first. A 1998 Marian graduate in the self-designed major of spirituality and leadership, Gilmore served as a trustee of Marian College for nine years. Her donation in 2000 helped create Marian’s Center for Spirituality and Leadership. She also created the Sophia Foundation, a supporting organization for the Fond du Lac Area Foundation, and was instrumental in creating its Women’s Fund.
Marian College is a Catholic applied liberal arts college located in Fond du Lac, Wis. The college offers more than 50 undergraduate and graduate programs at its main campus, and a variety of adult accelerated-degree programs in facilities throughout Wisconsin. The size of the College permits a very favorable student–faculty ratio, one of the lowest among Wisconsin colleges. Marian offers programs of study designed to meet a full range of pre-professional and professional academic needs. The primary divisions and programs include business, education, the arts, sciences, nursing and technology. Marian College is a community committed to learning, dedicated to service and social justice, and joined together by spiritual traditions.
