Dave Klater has spent many years assisting organizations in their continuous improvement journeys. This includes a 27-year career at BellSouth where Dave held various management and technical positions. He was involved in leading the implementation of BellSouth's Total Quality Management Program during the late 1980's and in driving organizational performance improvement through a Baldrige-based internal assessment initiative during the 1990's.

Since 1998 Dave has been active as a Management Consultant and has assisted various public and private sector organizations in using Baldrige/Sterling assessments for performance improvement. Clients include four public and private sector winners of state quality award programs in Florida and Georgia and clients in government, financial services, entertainment, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing. He has assisted clients in organizational assessment, strategic planning, leadership development, performance measurement and business process management.

Dave is currently a Senior Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program, a Board Member and Master Examiner for the Florida Governor's Sterling Award Program, a member of the Panel of Judges for the Georgia Oglethorpe Award Program and a Lead Examiner for the US Army FORSCOM Centurion assessment program. He is also the lead trainer for examiners for the Georgia Oglethorpe program. He is a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality and is certified as a Quality Auditor and a Quality Manager by the ASQ. He also has been trained as an ISO 9000 Lead Auditor.

Dave has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State and an M.B.A. from Florida International University.