NADEP North Island Commanding Officer Pete Laszcz receives congratulations from California Secretary of Commerce Lon S. Hayamiya. With them is NADEP North Island Plant Manager William Reschke and Cmdr. Dave Culbertson, Depot director of quality.

NADEP North Island Commanding Officer Capt. Pete J. Laszcz accepts the CAPE Award from (left to right) Robert Grasso and Karen Trisko, vice chairs for California Award for Performance Excellence council, and Michael Beason, chair of the CAPE council.

Naval Air Depot North Island accepts CAPE award
Story, photos by J. Kinchen-Schneider

Representatives from Naval Air Depot North Island smiled with pride as they watched NADEP Commanding Officer Capt. Pete J. Laszcz accept the California Award for Performance Excellence (CAPE) at a ceremony held April 19 at the Irvine Marriott Hotel in Irvine, Calif. Approximately 20-plus managers, supervisors and employees joined the captain for the two-hour ride to Irvine, a city located south of Los Angeles.
“Naval Air Depot North Island, recognized for its outstanding quality, low-cost products and services, and overall excellence was awarded the Silver Level and Best In Class in a three-tier process (gold, silver and bronze) conducted by the CAPE examiners,” explained Thomas D. Hinton, president and CEO for the California Council for Excellence. “The California Council for Excellence (CCE), which administers the statewide program, chose NADEP as the winner for the large manufacturing category because of NADEP’s performance in seven important business categories – leadership, process management, human focus, customer/market focus and a few others.”
The CCE, a non-profit, tax-exempt foundation, annually presents the CAPE program which honors manufacturing companies, service companies, educational institutions, government agencies, healthcare, non-profit, and military organizations. The awards adhere to the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), named after the late Secretary of Commerce. The Baldrige Award was established on Aug. 20, 1987 as an act of Congress (Public Law 100-107) to forge a private-public partnership that would promote and recognize the improvement of business performance, quality, and productivity among american businesses, according to CAPE literature.
However, for NADEP North Island, this is the fourth time the facility has won the prestigious award at the silver level, Hinton noted during his introduction of Laszcz.
“Traditionally, we always save the Gold level winner for last, but I’m disappointed to tell you that for the last two years we have not had a gold level winner,” he said. “However, there is one organization that is knocking on the gold level door and that organization is Naval Air Depot North Island.”
To a rousing ovation and boisterous cheers from the NADEP attendees, Laszcz made his way to the podium. Once there, he immediately thanked Cmdr. Dave Culbertson, Director of Quality, and Joe Caoile, Industrial Quality Department leader, for organizing, coordinating and producing the final application for submission for the CAPE award. He also praised the more than 3,300 employees of NADEP for the outstanding work they do on a daily basis, for their adherence to maintaining, fixing and producing quality work, all in support of the warfighter.
After the hour-and-a-half long ceremony, the finish to the day was the breakout sessions in which a representative from each of the winning organizations gave presentations on their respective companies/industries, their winning techniques/policies and overall success stories.
Laszcz gave an informative presentation on the complex nature of NADEP’s aviation maintenance programs, the overall dedication to supporting the warfighter and the innovative solutions to maintaining customer and employee relationships. Thus, he concluded the day with a significant message that NADEP’s constantly improving environment for innovation and learning is not only directed toward better products and service, but also towards being more responsive, adaptive, and efficient.