January 21, 2011

Dear Friends,

As I was growing up my Uncle Joe was someone I looked up to: a WWII veteran, president of the family business in Chicago, and someone who was never quiet about his opinions - in short, a mythical figure to a young teenager. One evening he asked me to go for a walk with him, and 50 years later I still recall the advice that he shared with me. My uncle said that 90 percent of the things that happen in one's life are the result of our own actions – only 10 percent are completely beyond our control. He suggested that the path to success lay in taking personal responsibility and ownership of the challenges that emerge in our lives.

The cyclical downturn in the business cycle that we are currently experiencing may not really be anyone's fault, but our reaction to it certainly is within our control. Here at DBPR we operate under very simple but effective principles – taking personal responsibility for the quality of every citizen's interaction with us and accountability for the outcomes of business processes. Every single employee is personally responsible for the interactions he or she has with our customers and is held accountable for the outcome of those interactions. Personal responsibility drives our 'Save the Day' program, a program that empowers every individual employee with the authority to make a difference for a business or a professional in need of a solution. Likewise, we measure nearly everything we do – from our processing speed to our error rates and our customer satisfaction rates. We use the feedback we get from our customers and our measurement systems to continuously improve our operations.

Our Department runs as a team and we don't pass the buck here – it's important that everyone understands how critical they are to achieving our mission of licensing efficiently and regulating fairly, and that every individual in this organization owns both our successes and our failures. Every individual counts, and together we will continue working to make Florida the best place in the nation to start a profession, grow a business, and achieve dreams.

Sincerely,

Charlie Liem
Secretary

Department of Business and
Professional Regulation
1940 North Monroe Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Customer Contact Center:
850.487.1395
www.MyFloridaLicense.com