For Release: Immediate (November 5, 2009)
Contact: Peter Conners, 610-526-2576, pconners@financialpro.org
Midnight Janitorial, High Performance Technologies, Inc. and Lockheed Martin Receive 2009 American Business Ethics Awards
Newtown Square, PA – The Foundation for Financial Service Professionals announced the recipients of the 2009 American Business Ethics Award (ABEA) at a gala event October 27 in Phoenix.
In making the announcement, Foundation Chairman Rich Linsday, CLU, ChFC, AEP said that “in these challenging times, it is encouraging to know that there are so many companies out there who are honestly striving to do right by their stakeholders in ways large and small. The ABEA is designed to shine a spotlight on these efforts in order to provide models for likeminded organizations and to remind the American business community that ethical corporate behavior never goes out of style.”
The recipients of the 2009 American Business Ethics Award are:
Small Company Category (less than 250 employees)
Midnight Janitorial, Rochester, New York, founded in 1996, is an all inclusive janitorial company. Its ethics program is grounded in the belief that the company operates as a member of a larger community and, as such, has responsibility for implementing business practices that contribute to the overall health of its employees, clients, and the Rochester area. Increasing the quality of the relationships within this community influences all Midnight Janitorial’s decisions.
This commitment is clearly reflected in Midnight Janitorial’s treatment of its staff, which is viewed by CEO Angella Luyk as the company’s greatest investment and responsibility. For example, Midnight Janitorial’s pay scale exceeds minimum wage, all employees are provided with on-going opportunities for professional growth, and the company has been widely recognized for hiring and promoting people with disabilities. Angella Luyk has also promised employees that they will never have to work weekends and has kept this promise even at the cost of significant new business.
Midnight Janitorial extends its high ethical standards to its clients and to the community by ensuring top quality service at an honest price and by donating time and financial support to community organizations, such as Junior Achievement, Salvation Army, the Center for Youth, the Rochester Women’s Network, and many others. Midnight Janitorial even pays employees up to four hours a month to volunteer their time to the Rochester community.
Mid-Size Company Category (250-2,500 employees)
High Performance Technologies, Inc., Reston, Virginia, was founded in 1991, and provides technology solutions for the federal government in a variety of disciplines ranging from systems engineering to secure software development to advanced program management to computational science.
HPTi’s President & CEO Timothy P. Keenan emphasizes that, despite the fast-paced world of information technology, the company remains steadfast in its commitment to its underlying vision and core values that stress team work, respect, professional development, client satisfaction, and integrity.
To emphasize the importance of ethics at HPTi, Tim Keenan personally trains all new employees on the HPTi Code of Professional Ethics, which are supplemented with mandatory annual ethics refresher courses. And it doesn’t stop there. HPTi communicates its core values on the back of its business cards, on coasters, on banners in its lobby, in the HPTi culture guide, on its Intranet, on the corporate website, and through a variety of other venues. The core values are even included on customer proposals and marketing materials.
This total cultural immersion in the company core values is evidenced by the significant recognition HPTi has received for its quality services and both customer and employee satisfaction. For example:
- U.S. Senate Productivity and Quality Award for sound approaches to business and education processes
- CARE Award for companies that provide family friendly workplace policies and benefits
- Best Workplaces for Commuters in Greater D.C. Region
- Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (for Tim Keenan)
- CIO Magazine Agile 100 for using IT to enable and support agility across the organization.
Large Company Category (more than 2,500 employees)
Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, Maryland, is a multi-billion dollar global security and IT company whose principal clients are the Department of Defense and federal government.
The guiding force for all of Lockheed Martin’s business initiatives and operating processes is its values-based ethics and business conduct program. Those values are exceptional in their simplicity: to do what’s right, to respect others, and perform with excellence. And those values have been instrumental in Lockheed Martin’s leadership position in the aerospace and defense industry.
To stress the significance of ethics within the Lockheed Martin culture, each year, Robert J. Stevens, the chairman, president and CEO, kicks off the annual ethics awareness training for his staff; and they in turn train their staff; and so on, until all 140,000 Lockheed Martin employees have been part of this meaningful dialogue about ethics and integrity in the workplace.
Lockheed Martin extends its ethics dialogue around the globe to include its 35,000 employees in countries such as Argentina, Greece, Singapore, New Zealand, and Japan by translating its code into 21 languages and creating and maintaining a unified ethics culture throughout the world.
Lockheed Martin further distinguishes itself as an ethical company in its commitment to stakeholders, including its customers, employees, and community, as demonstrating by the following partial list of activities, awards and honors:
- 2009 James S. Cogswell Outstanding Industrial Security Achievement Award (highest honor given by the Department of Defense to a government contractor).
- Aviation Week’s top aerospace and defense company in 2008.
- Ranked as second in the nation’s top 25 diversity council groups by the Association of Diversity Councils for its commitment to employee diversity.
- Ranked as one of the best employers for people with disabilities by Careers & the Disabled magazine.
- In 2008, $22 million dollars in corporate philanthropy provided support to entities such as the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, the Capital area food bank, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, and the National Organization on Disability wounded warrior project.
- Over 1.3 million volunteer hours donated by Lockheed Martin employees.
Lockheed Martin is the first company in the 16 year history of the American Business Ethics Award to be so recognized a second time.
Established in 1994, the American Business Ethics Award recognizes companies that exemplify high standards of ethical behavior in their everyday business conduct and in response to specific crises or challenges. Customers, employees, shareholders, or other members of the local community may nominate companies for the American Business Ethics Award. Each nominated company fully documents its answers to the ABEA Ethics Questionnaire and provides comprehensive supporting material to aid the judges in making their selection. ABEA judging guidelines are stringent and carefully applied by an expert panel drawn from the business, academia, public service, media, consulting and ethics communities. Entries are rated in four broad areas: executive commitment to ethics, ongoing ethics programming, demonstrated ethical business practices, and commitment to stakeholders, including employees, customers, and the community.
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About The Foundation for Financial Service Professionals
A charitable organization created to foster research, education and ethical practices amongst financial service professionals to benefit the public, the Foundation was established by the leadership of the Society of Financial Service Professionals (www.financialpro.org) in 1982.
In fulfillment of this mission, the Foundation has created several programs, including the Paul S. Mills Scholarship to encourage ongoing professional development among financial service practitioners; the Journal of Financial Service Professionals Author Award to advance scholarly research and writing in financial services; the American Business Ethics Award to recognize ethical practices in the American business marketplace; and Financial Education Partners™ (FEP), to provide pro bono financial guidance to individuals in need. More information is available at www.FinancialProFoundation.org.
Note to Editors: Images associated with this release can be obtained by clicking either of these links: ABEA logo and ABEA Trophy.