SAN ANTONIO — Clarke American, a leading provider of checks and check-related products, has honored Brent Cox as a recipient of the Clarke American Passioneer™ Award. Charles Korbell, Clarke American president and CEO, presented the award to Cox and three other recipients in a special ceremony designed to recognize the company’s most passionate partner executives.

Passioneer Award recipients are chosen based on their commitment to representing Clarke American’s values of Partnership Excellence, aligning with partner goals and strategies, using improvement process and tools to measure results, demonstrating responsiveness to partner needs and implementing solutions that achieve quality and customer-focused results.

“Our people and our culture are truly unique,” says Korbell. “It is our passion that drives us to achieve exceptional results in delighting our partners and customers. Our company’s success comes from associates who are committed to exceeding our financial institution partners’ highest expectations.”

Dr. Richard Chang, in his book The Passion Plan at Work: Building a Passion-Driven Organization, defines how passion is an essential part of a company’s core strategy. He examines how passion drives performance – turning good companies into great ones. Clarke American was included in a list of companies Dr. Chang identifies as superior in capturing the passion of its people. In the book, Chang states, “Clarke American is an example of what all organizations need to remember in developing their action plans: keep passion at the center.” Clarke American is profiled by Chang among eleven other notable organizations, such as Gateway Computers, Southwest Airlines, Earthlink, MindSpring and Disney Institute. The Passion Plan at Work is available in major bookstores nationwide, or at www.thepassionplan.com.

Clarke American provides checks and check-related products, Internet and contact center services, and direct response marketing solutions for the financial services industry.
Each year, the company produces more than 10 billion personal and business checks in a variety of formats for more than 4,000 banks, credit unions and other financial institutions nationwide. The company has more than 3,200 associates and a national network of electronically linked production facilities and customer service centers located throughout the United States.

Clarke American is a recipient of the 2001 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the manufacturing category, awarded by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and is the recipient of the 2001 Texas Award for Performance Excellence given by the Quality Texas Foundation. For more information about Clarke American, visit www.clarkeamerican.com.

For information about this press release contact
Mike Hannan
(210) 697-1299
Cary Corbin
(830) 609-1932