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Today's Featured Biography

 
Brian Lassiter

After graduating, I went to Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1991 with a BSBA. My first job out of college was with Boatmen's National Bank in St. Louis (now BankAmerica). I worked in the operations area, focusing on improvement projects, measurement, and service quality (my title was Senior Operations Analyst, which -- like most of us just out of school -- means "entry level" job!). After about a year, I took a Strategy Consultant job with Price Waterhouse (now PriceWaterhouse Coopers). I worked on some pretty cool projects for about 18 months, travelled quite a bit (the typical mid-20s thing), and cut my teeth in business.

In 1994, I moved to the Twin Cities to become an internal Quality Consulant with The St. Paul Companies (now St. Paul Traveler's). I worked for about five years at St. Paul, learning a great deal about Balanced Scorecard, reengineering, process improvement, and the Baldrige Criteria for Preformance Excellence. After St. Paul, I had two stops back at consulting firms: Norstan Consulting and TechArch Consulting. Both were technology companies, and in both cases, I was leading or assiting in efforts to launch a management consulting practice. Then 9/11 happened...and the dot-com bust...and the recession. Needless to say, technology wasn't for me.

So in 2001, I took the opportunity to move (yes again) to another job. This one has stuck for awhile: I'm the president of the Minnesota Council for Quality, a non-profit that helps organizations improve their results. We help leaders identify what to improve, through our Baldrige-based organizational assessment (the MN Quality Award), and then broker resources (consultants, information, benchmarking partners, training, etc.) to help organizations execute improvement initiatives. We have a massive staff of 4, but use about 120 volunteers (most of whom give 100+ hours of service a year) to accomplish our mission.

I absolutely love what I do, and enjoy seeing the impact of our efforts on businesses, K-12 school districts, non-profits, health care providers, and other types of organizations. (We're at www.councilforquality.org, but there are 37 state quality awards across the country, so if you're interested, you can find yours at networkforexcellence.org.)

I met my wife Gianna the summer of 1995, playing volleyball on opposite teams. Our teams were terrible -- fighting for last place in the league! But we enjoyed hanging out after the games, and the rest is history. We married the fall of 1996.

After a few years of enjoying our kid-less marriage, we had our first child, Alexander, in December 2002. Alex has a ton of energy and is all boy. Our second child, Maria, was born September 2004, and is all girl. She was putting on (fake) jewelry and lipstick (chapstick) by the time she was 1! The kids are each others' best friends (most of the time), and are a true blessing for my wife and I.

I still live in Minneapolis, about 6 miles from downtown in an area called the "Chain of Lakes" (there are 5 connected lakes that run from downtown to our neighborhood, which offer a excellent place to run, bike, etc.). I love the city -- it's a great place to live, raise a family, and work. And the weather isn't as bad as you think: the winters are growing milder and the summers delightful (though warming as well, reminding me some days of KC).

My mom and step-father live in Lee's Summit, and my dad and his family in Arkansas. My sister Megan (BSHS '90) lives in Blue Springs, teaching fourth grade at Chapel Lakes...I guess I was the one to move away, but she and my mom keep me connected to home.

It was good seeing many of you at our 20th reunion. I look forward to keeping in touch.

Brian

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