News Summary - Costa Rica Quality Conference (CRQC) 2005
San Jose, Costa Rica, March 14-16, 2005
http://www.asqcostarica.com
By Roger Echeverria, Edwin Garro, Dr. Alberto Miller, Eduardo Pe�a, Daniel Sniezek, & Dr. Manu Vora
The San Jose Palacio Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica was the venue for the first major quality conference organized by the newly formed ASQ International Member Unit (IMU) in Costa Rica. The Conference took place on March 14 & 15, 2005. The post-conference workshops on March 16, 2005 were held at the Camara de Industrias de Costa Rica. The Conference theme was �Performance Excellence in the New Millennium�.
Around 130 people including 26 students from two major universities participated in the quality conference. About 86 professionals attended five scheduled workshops after the conference. The overall attendee feedback for the conference was at 100%. The Steering Committee for the Costa Rica Quality Conference (CRQC) was comprised of the following members � Roger Echeverria, Oscar Gamboa, Edwin Garro, Carlos de Gracia, Rodrigo Jimenez, Dr. Alberto Miller, Omar Mora, Randall Obando, Eduardo Pena, Daniel Sniezek, Dr. Manu Vora, and Linda Zysko.
During the mornings, there were eight plenary keynote speakers from Costa Rica, Mexico and USA. In the afternoons, there were three parallel tracks with two session speakers each in the two consecutive time slots with a total of 24 sessions with local and international speakers. According to Dr. Juan Maria Gonzalez, Vice President of the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica, �This is one of the best conferences organized in Costa Rica in some times�.
The Conference was a good opportunity for new emerging faces of quality in Costa Rica to present their work or talk about their experiences. Additionally, it allowed the extensive amount of ASQ certified professionals to support their re-certification efforts.
The Conference was a success from the financial point of view. With generous sponsorships from various entities, the ASQ Costa Rica IMU has a positive cash flow from the conference and workshop events. The Conference sponsors were: Baxter, CR; GOAL/QPC, USA; Quality Council of Indiana, USA; Hospira, CR; Maestria en Sistemas Modernos de Manufactura, ITCR, CR; Praxair, CR; Broome Community College/SUNY, USA; Minitab, CR; Stuart Graduate School of Business, IIT, USA; Business Excellence, Inc, USA; Citigroup � Global Consumer Business, USA; CIED � Georgetown University, USA; Ludovico Produccion Grafica, CR; and Daniel Sniezek, USA. The CRQC Steering Committee sincerely thanks all the sponsors for their wonderful support.
At the conclusion of the second day of the conference, all the students who attended the conference discussed a possibility of starting a student branch in Costa Rica. This effort is underway and is likely to bear fruits for student branch formation in 2005.
