Texas Border Business
El Paso, Texas—City Manager Tommy Gonzalez has been nominated to serve a third term as Chair of the Quality Texas Foundation Board of Directors, making history as the Foundation’s first Chair selected for three consecutive terms.
The Quality Texas Foundation is a nonprofit organization that assists businesses, hospitals, schools, government agencies and nonprofits improve their performance. The Foundation offers training, seminars, assessments and recognizes organizations across the state committed to performance excellence through the application of the rigorous Malcolm Baldrige Framework.
“Tommy is an exemplary and proven leader who serves as a role model in the Baldrige process, focused on providing quality for El Paso and the State of Texas,” said Quality Texas Foundation Chief Executive Officer Dr. Mac McGuire. “We are appreciative that Tommy has accepted this appointment to serve a third term as the Foundation’s Chairman. He has established an acute knowledge in how to transform an organization in its journey toward performance excellence and you can clearly see that transformation across the City of El Paso.”
“The City of El Paso has been following the Baldrige framework for the last seven years and, as a result, has experienced tremendous improvements in City operations and services provided to the public; particularly in public safety, streets, parks, and economic development,” Gonzalez said. “We have strengthened El Paso’s financial stability by eliminating millions in deficits in the City’s general fund, public transit, and the golf course; established a Budget Stabilization Fund to minimize tax rate increases and respond to emergencies; and assembled a highly professional financial team to achieve zero audit findings for five consecutive years.”
Gonzalez added, the Baldrige criteria also helped the City achieve $147 million in cost savings and over 40,000 hours of staff time by implementing numerous Lean Six Sigma projects, saving the city millions more.
“By improving our processes, we have completed more street resurfacing projects over 400 streets, pothole repairs totaling 76,000 a year, and completing over 400 quality of life, street and facility capital projects. We have achieved most of these results in the last five years, while reporting seven consecutive years of General Fund surplus and maintaining the City’s double AA financial rating,” he said. “These impactful accomplishments have been made possible by the City’s engaged workforce which is dedicated to the City’s Mission, Vision and Values that provide a road map for our community.”
In April 2019, Gonzalez was awarded the Baldrige Foundation Leadership Excellence Award in the Government sector by the Malcom Baldrige Foundation in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes national role-model leaders in their field. Gonzalez is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a member of the Governing Texas Advisory Board, the U.S. Global Leadership Texas Advisory Board, the Association of the United States Army, and the 2026 Communities of Excellence. He retired from the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving for 22 years.
