Johnson Controls’ Darlene Rose Leads Major NAACP Event in Milwaukee

ACG leader and long-time member Darlene Rose, Senior Vice President at Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc., chaired the local coordination for the high-profile National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Conference – NAACP: Conscience of a Nation – held in Milwaukee July 9-14, 2005. “From the moment Milwaukee was named the host city for the 2005 national convention, we knew this convention had to be exceptional,” said Rose, who has been an ACG Wisconsin member for six years and a director for most of those years. “That Milwaukee was selected over Los Angeles, a major cultural convention city, means there can be no regrets by the NAACP national planning committee for having made such a bold decision,” she added when the announcement was made in late January. Rose attended ACG InterGrowth with Johnson Controls President and CEO John Barth in 2004, the year that Johnson Controls received the most prestigious award given to a corporation by ACG: The Outstanding Corporate Growth Award for significant and long-term financial and management success. The global manufacturer of automotive components and facility environmental controls has experienced 58 consecutive years of sales increases and is one of only five in the S&P 500 to have received a perfect score for corporate governance from Governance Metrics International, an independent ratings agency. “Darlene Rose has long promoted the values of Johnson Controls in the Milwaukee community by serving as a board member for many organizations, and her leadership is widely recognized,” said Barth. “The NAACP conference is important to Milwaukee and important to Johnson Controls, and we know that Darlene will help make it an unparalleled success.” As coordinator of the 96th NAACP convention, Rose orchestrated a host of activities, juggling the decisions and programs of hundreds of volunteers who anticipated 10,000 attendees over the six-day event. As plans were being made early on, 107 volunteers from Johnson Controls’ Community Involvement Program stepped up to solicit involvement from 300 additional volunteers to meet a goal of 400 residents to serve as greeters. “As show time approached, we recognized that this was a very special opportunity to leverage a heightened period of diversity-related awareness into company-wide, city-wide and community-wide actions. The event has provided an opportunity to discontinue business as usual and focus on the areas of opportunity that create a more equitable and prosperous society for the world to see,” said Rose as the convention neared. Peter Coffey, President of ACG and a Partner at the law firm Michael Best in Milwaukee, congratulated Johnson Controls for its continued and visionary leadership in all aspects and at every level of the organization. “A lot of companies aspire to diversity once a year in an ad campaign or a recruitment brochure, but Johnson Controls has proven that making diversity part of the strategy is good business,” said Coffey. “A business without boundaries, by definition, will do better because it has more individuals to chose from – the pool is more robust. Equally important, you don’t have to wait for the test market when your own team has the relevant multi-cultural experience.” Coffey also stated that Darlene Rose was the ideal individual to choose for an important leadership role. “She already had so much to do that she had developed top rate organizational and personal skills years ago or she wouldn’t be where she it today. Having said that, I’m not sure I would have wanted her two jobs over the last year,” he added. Not surprisingly, Johnson Controls’ awards for corporate distinction started well before ACG or the NAACP’s involvement as agents of recognition. In October 2003, the corporation was named “Corporation of the Year” by the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), regarded as the highest recognition a corporation can receive for conducting business with minority- and women-owned firms. The company was the first non-consumer products firm to receive the award. At the time, the company had more than 1,100 diverse suppliers representing more than 50 products and services in the automotive area, including three minority joint ventures that generated more than $500 million in revenue annually and resulted in hundreds of jobs. Johnson Controls’ supplier diversity purchases grew from $2 million in 1993 to more than $1.02 billion in 2002, enabling the company to reach its goal of $1 billion in annual diverse supplier purchases ahead of schedule. This achievement earned Johnson Controls’ induction into the Billion-Dollar Roundtable, an organization comprised of U.S. corporations that spend more than $1 billion annually with minority- and women-owned businesses. Johnson Controls was only the 12th company in the Roundtable. According to Barth, the supplier diversity program, which has received national accolades from both customers and organizations, is integrated into the company’s corporate strategic plans for growth. Additionally, the Michigan Minority Business Development Council has named Johnson Controls “Corporation of the Year” six times in the past eight years. The Tennessee Minority Supplier Development Council gave the company the same honor. The Greater Atlanta Economic Alliance also gave Johnson Controls its corporation award for outstanding achievement in supplier diversity. (c) 2005 Mergers and Acquisitions Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.majournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com