NCR Company, including its Peachtree City repair and parts distribution facility, has "embraced diversity and found value in it" through a system of ethnic business resource groups.

Randy Weil, vice president of NCR's Worldwide Service Logistics, says the "richness of thought" brought to decision-making tables by people of different races, cultures and life experiences "creates an atmosphere where we are better able to exercise an issue and arrive at a great solution." The company has resource groups representing diversity populations including Asians, Hispanics and African Americans.

One of those groups, the Alliance for Black NCR Employees (ABNE) for the Peachtree City operation, has awarded scholarships for the first time and started raising money to double the number of awards in the coming year. Sonya Porch of Coweta County and Tina Green of Atlanta, who both attend Clark Atlanta University, were the first ABNE grant winners.

Scholarships are the primary focus of the alliance's community outreach plan, says Annette Wright, president of the Peachtree City ABNE group which has served as "mother chapter" for ABNE groups at other NCR facilities all over the country. But the focus of the group, she says, "is bottom-line improvement for NCR through the use of our gifts and talents on behalf of a company that supports and encourages us." The group does this through community involvement, spiritual enrichment, economic development and diversity management, she adds.

Relating well to customers in an international market NCR does business in over 100 countries is one reason for NCR's vision for diversity in its "external face and internal heart," Weil says. He adds that while such programs as affirmative action or the ADA may have made companies take a look at their diversity, "it really has moved from a social responsibility to a commercial imperative ... a company able to think in broader terms will prosper inside and outside the U.S."

For instance, Weil says, "if you have 10 people sitting around the table to make a decision, and they all have the same experiences and the same backgrounds and similar thinking, there is no variety and richness brought to the table."

Wright says that ABNE also concentrates on professional training and leadership development for Black NCR employees. The group evolved from others which began in companies like AT&T. Last year, the ABNE banquet raised $1500 for the scholarships and featured Dr. Joseph Lowery as the speaker. At this year's recent banquet, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell spoke to a crowd of nearly 400 at the Westin Airport Hotel. Besides the banquet proceeds, individual donations are made to ABNE also, Wright said.

One of the donors is Tony Fano, a native of Cuba who is senior vice president for the Retail Solutions Group of NCR in Atlanta. (NCR has seven facilities in the metro area.) Fano also works with the Hispanic business resource group for NCR.

He says he contributed $1000 to the Peachtree City ABNE Chapter "because they are doing a great job of working to raise money for those scholarships and working in the community." He and his wife, Martha, decided that "all our charitable contributions this year would be aimed at youth and youth development," Fano added.

Wright says the group receives a lot of encouragement from NCR management, naming "mentors" like Mike Snell, interim finance director for WSL. She herself is truly dedicated to seeing that "every child has equal access to education and opportunities, and I mean every child," and to the idea that "I can help develop students of great potential who may work for NCR." She grew up in the Montgomery-Selma area of Alabama, she says, where her parents were civil rights activists.

Weil points out that he is himself a member of ABNE because he feels strongly about its value to the company.