Welcome everyone to our 34th Annual Weyerhaeuser Employees Dr. MLK, Jr. Observance.
Our employees, our Speakers and Honorees, Rev. Leslie Braxton, Dr. Cedric Howard, and Weyerhaeuser Retiree Bill Maki, and our performers, Tiffany Hammonds, Rosalind Bell, and Hal Rosenkrans and the One Good Turn Jazz Band.
We take this time every year to celebrate the legacy of a great American leader – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
And we do so by recognizing two special members of our community with our “Living the Dream Award” and our “Thelma Bryant Pioneer Award.” These awards are to recognize people who inspire us in the tradition of Dr. King, and people who make a difference in our community.
Whenever I have the opportunity to participate in our annual Martin Luther King program, I take some time to go back to the history books to read some of Dr. King’s inspiring and challenging speeches, and to think about his legacy — what it means for our country, and how it relates to our company today.
Dr. King’s remarkable leadership has been compared to that of Moses, who in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible, led the Jewish people out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
In his speeches, Dr. King talked about the Promised Land, and perhaps with a sense of premonition, acknowledged that he might not pass into the American Promised Land during his lifetime.
In preparing for today’s remarks, I returned to a book I’ve read in the past by author Bruce Feiler, entitled America’s Prophet, and subtitled Moses and the American Story.
Feiler suggests several leaders in American history have played the part of Moses when we most needed such a leader, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Interestingly, the only three individuals in American history who have holidays named after them.
Let me read a quote from Rev. Samuel Keyes who was with Dr. King on his last day in Memphis in 1968.
“Martin wasn’t killed in some foolish, untoward way. He wasn’t shot leaving the scene of a crime. He wasn’t murdered by a jealous lover. Here was a man who earned a PhD degree, a Nobel Peace Prize, had oratorical skills off the charts, and of all of the things he could have been, university president, senator, leader of mega-churches around the country, he died on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee helping Garbage workers. My God! What a way to give meaning to your life. And what a message to send to your country.”
In what may be his most famous speech, delivered in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1968, Dr. King talked about leading his people to the Promised Land, to collect what he termed, the “Promissory Note” in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence that stated that all men would be guaranteed the “inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Dr. King believed in the moral rightness of this imperative. And in a practical sense, he observed in an earlier speech that “if democracy is to live, segregation must die.”
So what does any of this mean for me and for Weyerhaeuser Company?
I strongly believe in the moral imperative, but I also turn practical. For more than a hundred years, Weyerhaeuser has been growing and harvesting trees to create products that meet important human needs, while providing stable, meaningful jobs in communities across the continent.
We think trees are remarkable. Even more amazing are the forests where they grow — a renewable resource with limitless potential, not just for today, but for generations to come.
But this potential cannot be unlocked without the care, the dedication, the expertise and the ingenuity of people. As I’ve said before – we need to couple our natural resources with our human resources.
In today’s world, engaging the very best talent to help us achieve our vision means not only seeking a diverse workforce, but also cultivating an inclusive work culture.
Diversity is not something to strive for — it is a fact of our lives. Diversity describes the world around us — our customers and our customers’ customers, our suppliers, and our employees.
This point was driven home to me just this week as I met with a group visiting us from Proctor & Gamble, one of our largest customers. These P&G leaders flew to Federal Way from points all over the world—North America, Europe and Asia --to challenge us to help them expand to new emerging markets across the globe.
So for me, diversity is, as I said, a simple fact. All of our stakeholders reflect a more diverse population, and we will change to reflect that diversity. In short – we will evolve.
A more important question is whether we are doing everything we can to embrace and unlock the power of our diverse experiences and distinct points of view?
That’s where inclusion comes into play.
Organizations with the best answer to this question will naturally become an employer of choice. People want to work where their unique contributions are respected, valued, and rewarded. To succeed, we need to rethink how we tap the creativity, the passion and the inventive spirit of all our people.
If we’re successful in this effort, the result will be a strong, sustainable business that benefits society on multiple levels.
I’m proud of the work we’re doing at Weyerhaeuser to become that company. We’re are re-doubling our commitment to developing leaders who role-model inclusive behavior, inspire teams to execute winning strategies, and build partnerships to get lasting results.
We need to measure ourselves and hold ourselves accountable for how well we’re able to attract, develop, and retain the diverse, critical skills we need to be successful.
That’s the only way that we can move forward.
In a speech in St. Louis in 1957 that he titled “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations”, Dr. King described three attitudes that one could take to answering this challenge. He said: “The extreme optimist would argue that we have come a long, long way in race relations. The extreme pessimist would argue that we have made only minor strides in the area of race relations. The Realist, who seeks to reconcile the truths of the two opposites while avoiding the extremes of both would argue that we’ve come a long way—but we have a long way to go.”
I find myself in the camp of the Realist. There is always more to be done, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. The rapid shift in workforce demographics we are all experiencing will demand shrewd focus and agility as we compete for the best and brightest. Most importantly, when new members join our team, our culture must embrace all they have to offer.
So—we have to evolve, rethink, and move forward. When we get this right, all our stakeholders will reap the rewards, and we will all take pride in what we can accomplish – together. As a nation and as a company, we’ve come a long way—but we have a long way to go.
Let the example of Dr. King serve as an inspiration to us as we continue our journey.
