Avenue des Olympiades 2 1140 Brussels Belgium 14 December 2008 Dear Madam or Sir: EFQM was established in 1988

by 14 leading European companies to assist in improving the competitiveness of European business. Membership was invited and currently there are over 700 members from a whole range of sectors from private to public, from large to small organisations from every corner of Europe. For detailed information on EFQM consult their website: www.efqm.org. Right from the start, EFQM saw Recognition of good/best practice as an important means of achieving its objective and established The European Quality Award emulating the success of the newly established Baldrige Awards in the United States. Robert began working for EFQM pro bono in 1991 as a consultant to head of the European Quality Award. His experience in manufacturing, service quality and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, in addition to his academic knowledge, proved extremely useful to EFQM in the early days of our organisation. I worked directly with Robert and supervised his work for EFQM from 1992-1999. Robert contributed to EFQM through research, development and writing of two case studies and instructors notes used in a variety of ways by EFQM but particularly in the training of Award assessors (senior managers of European companies who, in teams, assess Award applications). His experience as a Chief Quality Officer, research at Northwestern University and IMD, and relationships with CEOs at Motorola and Intel was invaluable in developing the case study, Alpine Electronics Suisse, based on the semiconductor industry. Because the scoring criteria for EFQMs Quality Award discern management practices and results across a continuum, Robert illustrated the case with examples corresponding to basic, good and best performance. The following year, Robert developed a 125-page financial services case for EFQM, General Bank of Switzerland, through his relationships with banks in Europe and the US, management consultants at McKinsey and BCG, and faculty at Harvard Business School. In addition to writing these cases, Robert worked with me as a lead trainer and assisted in training Award assessors to interpret management practice according to the guidelines and scoring criteria of the EFQM excellence model (upon which The European Quality Award is based). Robert worked as well with me and my staff at EFQM - executives from diverse business and cultural backgrounds. I found Robert to be professional and adaptable to different audiences in an international setting. His experience in manufacturing, finance and teaching was particularly useful in explaining management theory and practice. He was also dedicated - I recall Robert attending a working session of EFQM staff and corporate partners in London on crutches with a cast on his leg. He had surgery the week before! My experience working with Robert was particularly rewarding. Yours sincerely, W Mike Gallagher PhD