Laquita Harris

March 4, 2008

"A lot of people think Toyota is just a business," Laquita Harris told Putnam Rotarians today, "but we really try to become a part of the community."

As external affairs specialist, Harris includes among her multiple duties those of corporate citizenship oversight for the Buffalo operations.

She noted the half-million dollar gift of computers for Putnam schools when the local plant opened in 1996, and another half-million gift for the Toyota Aquatic Center at the Tri-County YMCA ten years later.

Environment is important for Toyota, she said. "We send no waste to the land fill, a remarkable achievement for a manufacturing plant with 1,428 team members.

Toyota has partnered with Appalachian Power to establish a wetlands wildlife sanctuary over some eighty acres south of Winfield.

"We built four boardwalks," so students might collect samples and observe the natural habitat of plants and animals.

Toyota has several projects to support education, Harris explained.

She talked about the annual Robotics Competition. Each county high school sends up to three teams to compete in four challenges. A Toyota engineer is assigned as a mentor at each high school. The challenges promote problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork.

The Toyota operation is high tech, says Harris. "We use robotics in our day to day activities."

The company also "embraces diversity," she told the group, "not just racial diversity, but diversity in backgrounds and culture." The Toyota teams include former morticians, former bank tellers, even dog caddies -- "people you would not ordinarily consider to be working on assembly of motors and transmissions.

"We try to bring our differences together to look at different ways of doing a job."

Toyota also encourages "volunteerism" as a further means of good corporate citizenship: Any team member who is a volunteer may receive a "scholarship" to support their work so long as the activity is non-profit, and there is personal involvement.

"We're really proud at Toyota that we have been able to give more than six million dollars to the community," she said.

But the payoff in intangible benefits, both for team members and their neighbors, may be much greater.