In our most recent Ethicast series, we gave our interns William Erblich and Andrew Marquardt a research project: which of the hundreds of companies with whom we work has the most robust, well thought out and generally impressive corporate social responsibility program? After weeks spent looking at dozens of companies, their answer was clear: The Boeing Company. Listen to this podcast featuring the company’s vice president of Global Engagement, John Blazey, who sat down to chat with our interns and our executive editor.
Highlights from the interview:
Tyler Lawrence: John, can you just tell us a little bit about what you do at Boeing and what your role is?John Blazey: Happily. My title here at Boeing is Vice President for Boeing Global Engagement, and I lead the company’s charitable and philanthropic activities throughout the country and the globe. We here at Boeing are on track to donate and invest into communities about $200 million this year, which from our perspective is a significant investment in our local communities but also is a significant investment in our people and the towns in which our employees live and work and where we do our business.
TL: That’s quite a sum of money. When Boeing thinks about corporate giving, what is your overall strategy? How are you identifying where you would like to focus your efforts?
JB: For Boeing, we look at our community investment as a social responsibility, both in terms of it being a short-term business priority, but also as one of our longer Enduring Values, and it’s foundational to everything that we do here. Our focus is on three major pillars. The first one is developing tomorrow’s innovators, both to feed our pipeline here in the aerospace community and to fill those high-skilled jobs for the 21st century.
