A global presence goes well beyond product sales at General Electric Co (Fairfield, CT). The company is sponsoring a $20 million humanitarian project to improve healthcare in Africa. GE employees are on board, both in managerial positions and on the ground making things work.
GE's African American Forum (AAF), one of the company's many employee networking and resource groups, holds an annual symposium. At the 2003 meeting attendees asked Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and CEO, "What are we doing in Africa?" Immelt answered with a $20 million commitment to install medical and power equipment, as well as water purification systems, in select hospitals in Ghana. By 2005 a core team of seven from various GE businesses had been established to set up the program.
The team is led by Alex Canfor-Dumas from GE Healthcare. Three of the core team leaders work in the GE Consumer & Industrial business: Anthony Pollard, a regional sales development manager for GE's hospitality vertical market team; Jametta James, a lead systems engineer for the consumer and industrial breaker sectors; and Tamara Samuels, a design engineer in new product introduction. They are all business leaders, as well as dedicated volunteers who have added the Africa Project to their regular work schedules. Pollard estimates that he spends five to seven hours a week on it.
Al Nichols of GE Water Technologies, Janeen Uzzell of GE Healthcare, Charles Grant of GE Commercial Finance and Rossetta Hooker of GE Infrastructure make up the balance of the team.
On the ground in Africa
Four hospitals in Ghana (in Korle Be, Konfe Anokye, Asesewa and Kintampo) have been receiving equipment and training through the program, and five new sites were added in October 2006. The facilities range from a state-of-the-art, city-based teaching hospital to small district hospitals in rural areas accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles.
Samuels visited Ghana in 2005 with other executive leaders to assess the sites and meet the team's local contacts. "I was not sure what to expect," she says. "I went as a blank slate." Originally from Jamaica, she felt at home when she first stepped off the plane in Ghana. The tropical heat, palm tree landscape and cinder block buildings were familiar. But the level of need astonished her. To start, there was a lack of clean water and a reliable power supply.
"There's two sides to the project: first, the corporate team goes in, assesses what the needs are, and gets the equipment donated and shipped to the site. Then AAF team members work directly with the hospital to make sure it has what it needs to sustain itself for the future," says Samuels. She points out that good hospitals are an important part of community infrastructure.
One of the first steps in the project involved applying Six Sigma methodology to streamline the hospital admission process. A survey tool was used to help determine what changes will serve the patients in the community best.
"We've been able to install water filtration and sanitation equipment to reduce malaria and airborne diseases. Without the healthcare or the hospitals, many of these diseases become terminal illnesses," reports Pollard. He and James will accompany representatives of GE Healthcare, GE Water Technologies and GE Power to the Ghana sites in November 2006. As the project expands, employees from other GE businesses will be invited to join the team.
The hospitals often need things outside GE's product line, like an autoclave and a blood bank refrigerator to support an operating room, and a 4x4 vehicle to serve as an ambulance. GE may provide funds to purchase such equipment, or solicit in-kind donations from other companies or the community.
Another element of GE's commitment to Africa involves a $100,000 grant by the company's charitable arm, the GE Foundation, to help improve Ghana's educational system.
Employee participation
Electronic communications have made it possible for the U.S. team to manage the Africa Project from Pollard's base in Bowie, MD and James' and Samuels' in Plainville, CT. Their African counterparts speak excellent English, but telephone connections are often difficult and there is a four-hour time difference to be considered. Computers are not available on site at the hospitals, so doctors involved in the project have to travel to regional centers to access e-mail.
Communicating with GE team members is easier. In addition to conference calls and e-mail, they use Sametime Connect, a platform for real-time collaboration, and share files on Internet sites.
The next step is to send more GE employee volunteers to Africa for short assignments of three to eight weeks to ensure that the equipment is providing the maximum benefit. Employees can apply through the GE Africa website, but are encouraged to confer with their managers first before doing so. Families are not allowed to accompany the volunteers.
Participation in GE's Africa Project can be a career plus, says Pollard. Employees who participate get a view of the full scope of the GE enterprise, and learn how to manage a global project and how to acquire resources to bring a project to completion.
Participants are selected based on their work records, skills, and experience with the African American Forum and other volunteer activities. Program participants are released from their regular responsibilities for the duration of their assignments, but receive regular pay.
"The employee volunteers are our ground soldiers to assess the area, because you never know what type of things it will need," James says.
Team leaders
Anthony Pollard comes to the Africa Project from the sales and marketing side of GE. He earned his BA and MBA from the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) in 1996, and then joined GE's appliance division in Louisville before moving to Maryland. He's currently the sales development manager for the hospitality vertical market team for the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions. His products include appliances, package terminal air conditioning units, lighting, and other industrial systems for the hotel/motel industry. Covering his region keeps him on the road. "I put 21,000 miles on my car in ten months," he says.
Jametta James earned a BSME in 1997 and an MSME in 1999 from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (Greensboro, NC). She joined GE's Edison Engineering Development Program in 1999, and did a rotation at the Plainville site. She then returned to North Carolina for another rotation, but ultimately accepted a job as a Six Sigma Black Belt back in Plainville in 2004. "I'm a Southern Belle, so this Connecticut weather is kind of tricky for me," she says with a smile.
She serves as lead systems engineer in Consumer and Industrial's cost-out organization. Her team seeks ways to cut costs by changing suppliers or doing material redesigns that make products lighter, thinner or faster to manufacture. Six Sigma analysis guides a lot of her work, which touches plants in Mexico, Puerto Rico and China.
Tamara Samuels earned her BSME from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA) in 1999. During her college years she worked two internships at GE. She entered the Edison program the same year as James, and rotated through technology manufacturing and sourcing in Plainville. Afterward she accepted the position of product owner on the industrial/commercial circuit breaker team.
Next she became a systems engineer for several lines of circuit breakers in the global industrial breakers organization, also part of GE Consumer and Industrial. There, Samuels managed seven product lines with more than 300 catalog number variations, and worked with legacy systems in commercial circuit breakers. She became a design engineer for global air circuit breakers in March 2006, where she deals with the challenges inherent in developing new products.
Samuels is an experienced volunteer. She has worked with Junior Achievement teaching or doing community service, like rebuilding houses and cleaning up yards. Her current volunteer effort is at a women's and children's shelter called My Sister's Place (MSP) in Hartford, CT. She has also taken part in seminars to educate people in computer skills, nutrition and other useful subjects, and recently applied her lean manufacturing training to organizing the basement at MSP as part of a thirty-six-member team.
In the diversity arena she is involved with SHPE's Connecticut professional chapter and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. Additionally, she is on the steering committees of both the GE Women's Network and the African American Forum, serving as communications chairperson for AAF.
"The commitment to volunteerism here sets GE apart," she says. "Everybody on site is involved, including general managers and above. That's something special."
"GE is a great company," adds James. "There aren't too many others that are taking on a big initiative like the Africa Project."
"It's indeed a great honor to serve on the Africa Project," says Pollard. "We at GE have established ourselves as leaders in several different industries, and we've seen the benefits of our products in people's homes and businesses in the U.S. It's extremely rewarding to be able to leverage our success here to help a developing nation, and be part of an initiative that is humanitarian in scope."
D/C
|
