TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, the Sterling Council is pleased to announce the 2026 recipients of the prestigious Sterling Award. This year, two outstanding organizations received the Georgia Oglethorpe Award and one organization received the Sterling Sustained Excellence Award. These award winners will be formally recognized on May 29, 2026 at the JW Marriott Bonnet Creek in Orlando to celebrate their accomplishments and achieve this recognition.
Stirling Council is the premier resource for leadership performance and business excellence in the South East. A recognized recognition process improves your organization in ways that no other system can. Sterling’s extensive corps of high-performing professionals, including more than 100 examiners and a 40-person board of directors, maintains the highest standards and saves states and organizations millions of dollars annually.
Georgia Oglethorpe Award
Fulton County Schools Human Resources Department
2026 Stirling Prize Winners
Fulton County Schools Human Resources serves more than 13,000 employees and 86,000 students across Georgia’s fourth largest school system, serving as a strategic partner to district and school leadership across recruitment and retention, employee relations, leadership development, compensation, workforce planning, and organizational effectiveness. Through disciplined continuous improvement, the department has delivered measurable results over the past three years by reducing onboarding time from 34 days to 15 days, maintaining school-based certified staff teacher retention rates district-wide from 87.8% to 89.5%, higher than the top quartile in the industry, and building a leadership pipeline that develops mission-aligned talent at all levels. Underpinning this effort is a Level Up professional development program that strengthens HR capabilities and develops future-ready leaders, reflecting a culture of shared responsibility where investing in people and providing excellent service to schools are treated as inseparable goals.
The Fulton County Schools Human Resources Department is the first educational institution in Georgia to be recognized as a Georgia Oglethorpe Award Winner.
Georgia Oglethorpe Award
Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton
2026 Stirling Prize Winners
Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton is a 236-bed hospital that is part of Northeast Georgia Health System, a nonprofit network whose mission is to improve the health of our communities through everything we do. The Braselton campus offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services, including emergency medicine, intensive care, labor and delivery, a Level II neonatal intensive care unit, and cardiac catheterization and surgical services across seven operating rooms. Guided by high-performance leadership systems, the hospital consistently achieves clinical outcomes that exceed national standards, including compliance with the Sepsis Bundle, and has maintained a patient experience rating of greater than 68% on both the “Recommended” and “Hospital Rating” criteria above national standards for five consecutive years. These achievements are a testament to the company’s continued commitment to quality care and community trust.
Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton is the first hospital to receive the Georgia Oglethorpe Award from Northeast Georgia Health System.
Sterling Sustained Excellence Award
Alachua County Tax Collector’s Office
2026 Stirling Prize Winners
The Alachua County Tax Collector’s Office (ACTC) has spent more than a decade building one of Florida’s most prominent government organizations. This was not achieved by chance, but through disciplined leadership and a comprehensive management system based on the Florida Sterling Performance Excellence Standards. The system integrates strategic planning, performance measurement, talent development, and transparent communication into a single, coordinated approach that touches every level of the organization. The results speak for themselves. 97% continuous customer satisfaction, industry-leading practices in real-time feedback and data-driven performance management, and statewide recognition as the benchmark organization for the tax collector community. Guided by our values of Respect, Excellence, Service, Professionalism, Fun, Caring, and Teamwork (RESPECT) and an unwavering commitment to integrity, innovation, and fiscal responsibility, ACTC has made excellence in public service an operating standard, not an aspiration.
The Alachua County Tax Collector was recognized as a 2022 Governor’s Sterling Award recipient and is now recognized as a two-time Sterling Award recipient.
About Stirling Council:
Founded in 1992, the Sterling Council is a public-private, nonprofit corporation supported by the Governor’s Executive Office. The council oversees the Governor’s Sterling Award for Excellence in Achievement and the Georgia Oglethorpe Award, which is based on the national Malcolm Baldrige Award and is presented annually to a high-achieving exemplary organization, public or private, that has demonstrated an excellent management approach and exemplary results. Sterling’s annual conference teaches attendees how to improve performance and increase productivity. Nearly 600 executives and professionals flock to this event each year for a one-stop source of education, information and inspiration. The conference concludes with recognition of Best Practices, Team Showcase Champions, and the presentation of the Stirling, Oglethorpe, and Manufacturing Business Excellence Awards. For more information, contact Dione Geiger at (850) 922-5316 or visit www.thesterlingcouncil.org.
