Serving clients and community

by J. Wilson Hershey, Ph.D., President For an event marking Lancaster Labs’ 45th anniversary, employees wore T-shirts printed with the words, “Celebrating 45 years of service to clients and community.” This theme seemed apt for the celebration, coinciding as it did with a company initiative to build two Habitat for Humanity “Homes in a Box” for Gulf Coast hurricane victims. During the event, employees were invited to walk through the house frames constructed the previous weekend, which provided a visible testimony of their community service. Throughout our history, we have helped the broader community, both through volunteer efforts and financial support. Just since 2000, departments throughout the company have planned and participated as volunteers in more than a hundred Community Heroes projects. These have included such activities as river cleanups, collecting videotapes for troops in Bosnia, picking up trash along highways, holding bake sales for worthy causes, and providing holiday gifts for children of needy families. Dr. Wilson Hershey joins approximately 75 employees to hammer out the frames of two homes for Habitat. In 2005, we were all touched by the plight of people devastated by the tsunami in eastern Asia and by Hurricane Katrina in our country. In response, we joined together to donate more than $30,000 to organizations providing relief to the victims. This year, in a company-wide Community Heroes project, our company and employees donated more than $20,000 to cover materials and shipping costs for the Habitat for Humanity homes, which we framed up just in time for our anniversary celebration. After the celebration, we pulled the frames apart and loaded them on trucks headed to Mobile, AL, and Beaumont, TX, where the houses will be erected by Habitat volunteers and prospective homeowners. As clients, you are probably more aware of the service we provide to you than of our service to the community. Our goal is now, as it has been for the past 45 years, to provide you with excellent service. I feel sure that our employees’ commitment to meeting the needs of those we serve has helped us grow from a small lab serving the local area to one of the largest in the nation, serving clients in all 50 states and 30 countries. We have several award programs that recognize and reward employees for excellent service. For example, the Hero-maker Award is an employee-to-employee recognition that rewards coworkers for “above and beyond” behaviors that exemplify our core values. In the last year, more than 100 different employees were commended by their colleagues for service-centered behaviors. Thank you for the business you send to us. We realize that “service” can always be improved, and we constantly look for new ways to do just that.