Elevations Credit Union Wins Second Baldrige Award

Elevations Credit Union of Boulder, Colo., has earned the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for the second time.

Elevations ($2.6 billion in assets, 147,725 members as of Sept. 30) was one of five organizations that won the award this year, and became the ninth organization to win the award more than once since its inception in 1988, according to the Nov. 24 announcement from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which manages the program.

Elevations first won the award in 2014, and the award program’s rules required Elevations to wait at least five years before applying again. It is the only credit union to have ever received the award, much less winning twice.

“The Baldrige framework has inspired our team to continuously enhance our processes, products and services,” Elevations President/CEO Gerry Agnes said.

Elevations was the 129th-largest credit union in the nation based on June 2020 assets of $2.5 billion, up 18.8% from a year earlier. But it was the 13th-largest originator of real estate loans based on the 12 months of 2019 and 24th-largest based on originations from January through June.

NCUA data also showed it ranked 11th in 2019 for its first mortgage originations of $1.6 billion, up 39.1% from 2018. “This high rating outpaces Elevations’ asset size, and its ability to lend only in Colorado versus other lenders that cross state lines,” according to the Elevations profile posted by the Baldrige program.

Twenty organizations applied last spring for the award, including Elevations and five other nonprofit organizations.

An independent panel of judges reviewed the evaluations performed by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program’s all-volunteer Board of Examiners and recommended this year’s award recipients.

The Baldrige judges evaluate organizations in leadership, strategy, customers, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce, operations and results. Site visits — including document reviews, interviews, focus groups and other interviewing methods — were conducted virtually due to the pandemic for the first time in the program’s 32-year history.

Some of Elevations’ accomplishments cited by the awards program were:

• Its pull-through rate (the percentage of loan applications carried through to funded status) has exceeded 88% since 2015, exceeding the Mortgage Bankers Association 75th percentile.
• The cycle time from mortgage application to approval decreased from 35 days in 2015 to 27 days in mid-2020.
• For commercial loans, production rose from less than $50 million in 2015 to about $175 million in 2019, even as the charge-off ratio remained at zero.
• In spring 2020, Elevations ranked in the top 95% of U.S. organizations for overall employee engagement based on the Gallup Q12 survey.

The Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 and is not given for specific products or services. Since 1988, 134 awards have been presented to 124 organizations. The Baldrige program is a public-private partnership funded in part through user fees and support from the Baldrige Foundation.

AARP, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group for people 50 and older, also won in the nonprofit category this year. The other 2020 winners were:

• Mesa, a Tulsa, Okla., company providing corrosion control services in the oil and gas sector, won in the small business category. It is the first three-time winner, having previously received the award in 2006 and 2012.
• GBMC HealthCare System, which operates hospitals and clinics in the Baltimore area, won in the health care category.
• Wellstar Paulding Hospital in Hiram, Ga., west of Atlanta, won in the health care category.