APPA's highest institutional honor, the Award for Excellence in Facilities Management (AFE), recognizes those educational institutions whose facilities management organizations demonstrate quality in overall operations and effectiveness. The two most recent recipients, Arkansas State University-Jonesboro (ASU-J) and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV), were honored at the awards banquet during the APPA 2010 conference held in July in Boston, Massachusetts. Since the AFE Award's inception in 1988, when Brigham Young University and the Medical College of Georgia were the first recipients, fewer than 50 institutions have received this distinct honor. Evaluation for the award consists of two parts: (1) a self-evaluation addressing specific, stringent criteria; and (2) a site visit by a team from APPA's Professional Affairs Committee to confirm the accuracy of the self-assessment. Applying for and receiving the AFE is no small task for an institution. The two universities show that it takes teamwork from everyone within the facilities organization and requires coordination, motivation, and support from the top levels of leadership to be a successful facilities operation and to win the APPA Award for Excellence.