Meeting

Report

 
CHRIS WILLIAM
A Man of Honor…
A Man of Strength
by Marilynn Bowler
  
Taking us from Malden Mills on the Merrimac River in Massachusetts to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Great Depression, the highly regarded and uncommonly renowned Carolina Business Review moderator Chris William demonstrated his finest business and ethics insight in his remarks to our Rotary Club. We packed the house at the mega-sized ballroom at the Adam’s Mark to hear this excellent business analyst and financial strategist talk to us about ethics in business, and it was worth every minute of it. He wisely began his remarks drawing a comparison between the values contained in Rotary’s Four-Way Test and his belief that those standards should guide corporate America. Citing Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness and Compassion as the five ingredients of good business leadership, Chris stated unequivocally that Compassion is the key component of a good manager.
 
As Senior Executive Consultant in the Private Client Group of Wachovia Securities, Chris has somehow found the time, commitment and energy to co-found and host the unique and amazing Forum For Corporate Conscience – a go-for-broke corporate challenge to top and middle management to put ethics, values and uncompromising trustworthiness head-first above all else in a business plan. Whereas ethical behavior is, at best, difficult to make compulsory, Chris says that it must start at the top …CEO should really stand for “Chief Ethics Officer.” In order to earn back the public trust lost through decades of shady business dealings, corporate leaders must maintain an incredible and uncompromised level of trustworthiness.
 
During this era when almost every gauge of success in business and industry is measured by the bottom line, the reward for moral and honorable behavior can be arcane, vague and intangible. The resulting spillover is scary. Core values hardly exist in the corporate world. Our children are reflecting this decrease in ethics so much so that a survey of 12,000 high school students, taken in the Fall of 2002, determined that young people are less concerned about ethical behavior than ever before, and what is truly unsettling is that many of these same young people will be our corporate executives and community leaders in the next group of Chamber volunteers and civic committee chairmen. After much consideration, in March of 2003 Chris co-founded and hosted 150 CEO’s from the southeast, the nation and internationally to discuss corporate sustainability. Thus, the “Forum for Corporate Conscience” was born. For three days in Charlotte, those 150 business gurus hashed over what it would take to create a catalyst for positive change. Keynote speaker was none other than Warren Buffet, with Hugh McColl as Chair. Chris William and Mary Tribble co-chaired. The Forum in Action Workshop for senior managers was subsequently built on the established consensus that for long-term profitability, a company must focus on social and environmental responsibility, as well as economic performance. Regardless of financial rewards, “trust-and-integrity” is the only true currency we have to exchange.
 
Chris quoted FDR when he said - during the midst of the Great Depression and that season of corporate greed, - “Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.”
 
Thanks to incredible men with the strength of their convictions, - like Chris William - corporations will now be expected to set high ethical standards and live up to them, or their failings will be seen best on the dropping bottom line.
 
Head Table:
Ed Turner, Carol Jordan, Catherine Browning, Mike Butler, Tom Bartholomy
     
Visitors and Guests:
Bill Bradley; Health & Happiness: Catherine Browning; Song: Richard Early; Invocation: Leland Park

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2005 CELEBRATE THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF ROTARY INTERNATIONAL 6:30 PM DINNER CHARLOTTE COUNTRY CLUB RSVP TO THE ROTARY OFFICE BY FEBRUARY 16, 2005
NEW MEMBER PROFILE
	John H. McDermitt, Jr. LandAmerica / Lawyers Title  Commercial Services 201 S. College St, Ste 1590 (28244) 704-377-0093 jmcdermitt@landam.com
John McDermitt moved to Charlotte July 1, 2004 when he was promoted to Commercial Services Manager in the Carolinas for LandAmerica/Lawyers Title. Previous to his move, he served as branch manager for the company in Parsippany, New Jersey. He has been in the title insurance business for twenty-eight years. John was born in Denville, New Jersey and has a B.A. from Saint Anselm’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire. His record of community service includes several years on the Frankford Twp. Board of Health, 4-H youth development, Sunday school teacher, Habitat for Humanity, and MS fundraising. John and Cheryl, his wife of 25 years, live in South Charlotte, and have two grown daughters.

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