Brian Dieter Receives Hertz Leadership Award from Baldrige Foundation

AMES, IA – Brian Dieter, president and CEO of Mary Greeley Medical Center, has received Harry S. Hertz Leadership Award for 2025 from the Baldrige Foundation. 

"The Hertz Leadership Award recognizes role-model leaders that challenge, encourage, and empower others to achieve performance excellence," said Al Faber, recently retired president and CEO of the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. "Brian has long been committed to servant leadership through the application of the Baldrige Framework in everyday operations at Mary Greeley Medical Center. The impact Baldrige has had on the lives and health of Iowans continues to serve as an inspiration to others."

The award was presented to Dieter at the Baldrige Quest Conference in Baltimore on Tuesday, April 1.

Dieter has been president and CEO of Mary Greeley since July 2008. Prior to this he was Mary Greeley’s chief financial officer for nearly 9 years. Mary Greeley serves patients in a 14-county region of central Iowa and employs more than 1,4000 people. During Dieter’s tenure as CEO, Mary Greeley has experienced significant growth in the range of services offered to patients and enhancements to patient care facilities. Most recently, Mary Greeley partnered with McFarland Clinic on the Ames Surgery Center, the first outpatient surgery center in Story County.

Mary Greeley received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2019. Baldrige is one of the nation’s leading measurements of quality improvement. The medical center also achieved the highest level of recognition in the state’s Baldrige program, the Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence (IRPE), four times (most recently in 2023). 

The Baldrige Foundation created the Harry S. Hertz leadership award in 2013. It was named after Harry Hertz, the first winner, because he personified the Baldrige Core Values and Leadership Behaviors: visionary leadership, customer-focused excellence, valuing people, organizational learning and agility, focus on success, managing for innovation, management by fact, societal responsibility, ethics and transparency, delivering value and results and a systems perspective. Hertz was the director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and is the person largely credited for keeping the Criteria for Performance Excellence relevant in a rapidly changing world.