How We Drove Excellence Into that State Agency!

[3.5-minute read]

After 11 fabulous years, January 13th was my last day serving at ADEQ. It was an amazing journey and privilege! I am so proud to have been the longest-serving and first Latino Director in ADEQ history. More importantly, I am incredibly grateful for everything I learned as a leader and all we accomplished as team!

Here are some highlights of our transformation (see more):

• Helped 245 drinking water systems resume delivery of healthy water to an estimated 1.4 million people by not just regulating, but facilitating.
• Launched and expanded the award-winning myDEQ permitting and reporting portal, including 51% of eligible services, 91% faster permitting timeframes, 55% faster return to compliance, and an estimated economic benefit of over $150 million per year.
• Restarted the leaking underground storage tank program, streamlined the heck out of it, doubled the clean-ups completed per year, leaving the lowest number of open releases since the 1980’s.
• Completed cleanups at 6 state hazardous waste sites (WQARF Program) when 0 had been completed in the previous 25-year history of the program.
• Restarted the voluntary vehicle repair program, assisting a record number of drivers repair their vehicles in order to comply with emissions standards.
• Navigated COVID without missing a step, resulting in 80% of the workforce working remotely while increasing performance.
• Vacated 80,000 square feet of office space, saving millions in lease cost for the State and allowing other natural resources agencies to move in.
• Negotiated a $38 million solution to critical, cross-border waste water infrastructure that had been neglected for 40 years.
• Advocated for, and negotiated the passage of over 20 laws relating to the environment.
• Won 28 local and national awards including the CIO 100, and the National Ground Water Association Outstanding Groundwater Remediation Project Award.
• And MOST importantly, we saw a 400% increase in the employee engagement ratio (quantified through a yearly survey).

And how did we do all of that? We implemented a wholistic management system: a people-centered Lean Management System, known today as the Arizona Management System (cool, right?). Here’s what we did:

• Established meaningful program-specific metrics and let everyone know that metrics should be used as a wrench, not a hammer.
• Created a strategic high-level roadmap.
• Developed a 5-year plan with numeric goals (and then updated it every year).
• Introduced Lean principles, tools and structured problem solving.
• Implemented over 3,000 employee-initiated improvements – boom!
• We vertically integrated functions into programs (a.k.a as value streams) to create better work flow and fewer barriers.
• Instituted team-level performance boards to track the delivery, quality, cost, continuous improvement and mission outcomes.
• Designed flow boards to track work progress and identify problems, especially work that was stuck.
• Established a first-of-a-kind monthly management report by program including people, performance, projects and financials.
• Held tiered, daily, 15-minute huddles at every team and every level.
• And we problem-solved all the time because problems are gold!

That's how we drove excellence. And if we could do it, so can you!