Abstract

Philip B. Crosby, who died this summer from esophageal cancer, changed everything about the way Americans work. He is credited with enforcing the message "Do things right the first time" and introducing the concept of striving for zero defects. After a brief career in medicine as a podiatrist, Crosby joined the Crosley Co. as a quality technician, working his way up the ladder to corporate vice president. After leaving Crosley in 1955, he joined ASQ and held quality positions in at Martin-Marietta and International Telephone and Telegraph before founding Philip Crosby Associates Inc. (PCA). Through his work at PCA, Crosby taught the importance of quality to top management of numerous major corporations. Retiring from PCA in 1991, he founded Career IV Inc. to help executives grow as leaders through educational lectures and seminars. Crosby returned to his old company in 1997, purchasing its assets and establishing Philip Crosby Associates II Inc. to teach his clients how to implement their quality improvement processes. Crosby's Quality College, the educational division of PCA II, today offers more than 30 products and courses and operates in more than 20 countries around the world, helping clients realize the culture change that results when a permanent quality management system is installed. Crosby's ideas and teaching methods worked. Over a period of 22 years he got his ideas across in more than a dozen books in which he put forward his four absolutes of quality management. While Crosby's passing leaves a void, PCA II is committed to spreading his "gospel of quality" to succeeding generations of business executives. Sidebar articles present Crosby's Four Absolutes of Quality Management, a timeline of his career, and remembrances by friends and associates.