Engineering Inc - May/June 2018 - 67

A
PHOTOS COURTESY OF: KCI TECHNOLOGIES

KCI Technologies CEO Terry
Neimeyer (second
from right) works
with employees
and other volunteers from the
Alliance for the
Chesapeake Bay
and the Maryland
Environmental
Service at Cox
and Swan creeks
to collect more
than 2,000
pounds of trash.

RISM
BY CALVIN HENNICK

t KCI Technologies, corporate social responsibility isn't just a top-down effort.
Company leaders at the 1,400-employee Sparks,
Maryland-based firm, are encouraged to serve on
nonprofit boards and give to charity at a high level.
And much of KCI's fundraising and volunteering
efforts revolve around a companywide, three-decade
commitment to supporting the United Way, which
helps create a centralized focus on the importance of philanthropy.
But going a step further, employees are encouraged to spearhead their
own charitable initiatives and take part in a companywide vote each year
to pick a new nonprofit group to support.
"The importance of giving back was embedded in me when I started
here in 1977," says Terry Neimeyer, CEO at KCI. "It's something that
was expected. We've always looked at it as, if we're receiving profits
from the community through our work, we should find a way to give
back to those in need, in a way that is organized and structured."
Neimeyer has sat on multiple nonprofit boards and encourages senior
KCI leaders to be "leading givers." But he says that rank-and-file employees within the company-especially younger workers-not only support
the firm giving back, they demand it.
"The millennial generation, our younger employees, grew up with a
mission to make the world a better place," Neimeyer says. "If you don't
have that kind of mission, they don't work for you for long." Nathan
DeRose, communications and social media coordinator at KCI, is one of
those younger employees. He was barely out of college when he nominated St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as the employee-selected charity several years ago. "Being a newer employee, it allowed someone who
was green in the industry to take on a leadership role," he says. "That was
my opportunity to support a charity in a big way-having access to such
a large company with so many people who were willing to support it."
KCI's emphasis on charity results in more engaged leaders and employees, says Dierdre Crowl, assistant chief knowledge officer who manages
the United Way giving campaign. "I think it makes for well-rounded
leaders," she says. "At the same time, we're 100 percent employee-owned,
so we try to have a very employee-centric culture. We could come in every
day and just do great work, but if we can also pull together as a team and
give back to our communities, that gives you such a deeper sense of commitment and connection to your firm."

At a local ACEC
STEM event, Ryan
Shumaker, survey
technician at KCI
Technologies,
walks a high school
student through
manipulation and
analysis of data
collected during
field surveys.

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