Dr. Diane Rivers is the President and CEO of Quality Educational Systems, Inc., a research, development, consulting, and school reform company, located in Birmingham, Alabama, and committed to transforming public education through quality initiatives. QES, Inc. was the 2003 recipient of the Alabama Quality Aard and the 2005 recipient of the Alabama Quality Award for Continuous Improvement, based on the demanding Baldrige criteria.
Dr. Rivers earned her Ed.D. from the University of Arkansas, and has extensive experience as an elementary, secondary, and university teacher, as an educational pscyhometrist and psychologist; and sixteen years experience in a variety of system level administrative roles. She is a member of numerous professional and civic organizations, including AASA, ASCD, ASQ, WIPP (National Founding Partner), and Rotary International, and has been listed numerous times in Who’s Who in American Women, Who’s Who in American Education, and Who’s Who in the South.
She is a frequent speaker and writer, with a particular passion for creating and sustaining quality school systems. She has provided educational leadership and consultation to urban, suburban, and rural school systems, colleges and universities, professional organizations, and businesses. Dr. Rivers is the developer of QuESt - Quality Educational Systems: Tools for Transformation, a nationally recognized Comprehensive School Reform Model. She has trained k-12 institutions, colleges and universities in the model, which was first used at Wilkerson Middle School as a pilot to enable them to be the first school in the nation to receive the prestigious Rochester Institute of Technology/USA Today Quality Cup Award in 1994. As team leader for the award, Dr. Rivers was recognized in a 1995 issue of Forbes magazine, and was also selected as the Distinguished Lecturer for the Gasser Lectureship Series in April 1995, at the Business College, Rochester Institute of Technology. Since 1997, schools in 20 states have implemented QuESt, many of whom have received recognition from their state level Baldrige Award offices.
Dr. Rivers was recognized as one of “21 Voices for the 21st Century” by the American Society for Quality, and was featured in the January 2000 issue of Quality Progress. Dr. Rivers combines her practitioner’s experience as a teacher and system level administrator with her expertise as a consultant. Dr. Rivers has also designed and developed multiple web-based technology applications to assist schools in performance management. She is also a certified Covey trainer, providing leadership training in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 4 Roles of Leadership, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens to schools and districts throughout the country. Her seminars, leadership forums, and learning materials combine an interactive, developmental approach, based on adult learning theory, enabling participants to embrace the philosophy of continuous improvement, systems thinking, and strategic focus, internalize the concepts, and emerge prepared to lead a quality initiative.
Dr. Rivers is a member of ASQC, AQP, and a charter member of AASA’s Total Quality Network. She also served as member of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s Total Quality Task Force, which she chaired in 1994. During her Chairship, the Total Quality Center and subsequent Quality Council was formed. She is a member of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners (2002, 2003, 2005), and served as an Examiner (1996-97), Senior Examiner (1997-1999), and Overseer (1999-2000) for the Michigan Quality Council’s Board of Examiners, where she also served as Chair for the Council’s statewide K-16 Education Committee. She is also a member of the Alabama Quality Award Board of Examiners (2003, 2004, 2005). In 2005, she was nominated by President George Bush as a Commissioner to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences.
