Not all company mission statements are created equal. Take the one General Johnson penned over 60 years ago while running the family business, Johnson & Johnson. To say it has stood the test of time would be an understatement. Visitors to any Johnson & Johnson facility will quickly spot the credo in hallways, meeting places and managers offices and every employee carries a copy as well. “We live and breathe it every day,” says John Brant, Director of Human Resources/Community Relations for Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson Company since 1996.
Brant breaks the mission down into four areas. “Our first responsibility is to doctors, nurses and patients worldwide who use our products and services. Second, to our employees who work for Johnson & Johnson. Third, to the communities that Johnson & Johnson employees live and work in. And, finally, to our shareholders. Interestingly enough,” he adds, “the mission statement was put together when the only shareholders were Johnson family members.”
Cordis sponsors FIRST, a student organization which encourages participation in science and mathematics by having students build robots.
Obviously, the company has just a few more shareholders to please these days and having an organization like Cordis under the Johnson & Johnson umbrella certainly helps keep them happy. With 7,000 employees worldwide, Cordis is a leading developer and manufacturer of medical intervention products, minimally invasive computer-based imaging and electrophysiology. Its innovative CYPHER® Stent was named one of the top 10 medical advances of 2003 by the American Heart Association, and helped nearly a million patients in 2004.
But for all of Cordis technological accomplishments and success in the marketplace, Brant says the company also stands out because of the third part of the Johnson & Johnson mission: a commitment to local communities. “We give financially and we encourage our workers to get out on the weekends and on evenings to do something for their communities,” he says.
That, again, is an understatement. Headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida, Cordis sponsors and is actively involved in a wide range of community programs. For example, Cordis helps an economically disadvantaged school district be part of FIRST, a student organization which encourages participation in science and mathematics by having students build robots. “We sponsor North Miami Beach High School we send in our engineers and technicians and the students build robots for competitions throughout the country,” Brant explains. The intensive six-week program often means students and volunteers working through weekends to complete their projects, but Brant says the results are well worth it. “The program allows the kids to really see science and math in action,” he points out. “It can be the first time they pick up a wrench or fiddle with wires.” The competitive element drives students to try and excel, and Brant says theres nothing quite like “10,000 technology aficionados getting riled up about robots at the Houston Astrodome.”
Shown are members of the North Miami Beach High School Robotics Team, nicknames the “Flashbacks” at the National Annual Competition in Houston, TX.
Other times, Cordis involvement is more financial. On a quarterly basis, the companys charitable contributions committee evaluates any proposal that addresses one of their key areas of concern: children, students and education, and any cardiovascular need.
One example is its work with the Miami/Dade Chapter of the American Heart Association to sponsor “the Red Dress campaign,” a weekend of free health screenings for women at their local mall focusing on early identification of potential victims of heart disease. “Celebrities donate their red dresses for the affair and the clothing is showcased in a museum-like setting its a fun-filled event,” says Brant, who also serves on the board of the Miami/Dade AHA.
KAPOW is another program Cordis supports both financially and as a participant. “Every year we adopt a grade this year its the fifth grade at Charles Wyche Elementary School, which has seven classes. And then we take the work setting to the school,” Brant says. Two or three Cordis volunteers help each class by developing a lesson plan every week for 12 weeks. Each session concludes with a lunch and tour of the Cordis facility. “We get the kids jazzed up about working hard in school, and weve been recognized by the local school boards for our efforts, so we know our message is being delivered and heard,” Brant explains.
Cordis also participates in Bridge to Employment, the largest high school internship program in Florida, as well as INROADS, the largest minority-based college intern program in the country. In fact, Cordis is the largest employer in the southeast to work with INROADS. “We bring in 40 minority college students and 30 economically disadvantaged high school students from North Miami Beach, who have potential, and put them to work over the summer in really strong work projects that give them tremendous career experience,” Brant says.
Cordis annually sponsors High School students in a 6 week program where students learn engineering, mathematics, and science principles as they completely build robots that compete against other schools across the country.
Even when it comes to more traditional corporate charities like the United Way, Cordis is not content to merely write a big check. “We invite United Way agencies to come in and talk to our workers about what their contributions mean, and how our workers can volunteer to help out,” Brant says.
Its possible to be so thoroughly impressed with Cordis as an organization working to improve communities that you forget for a moment that its primary work involves breakthroughs in medical technology that are of profound value to both patients and medical professionals. Detailing those breakthroughs could be a book-length project, but Cordis is especially well known for pioneering the use of stents to treat heart disease implanting a stent in an artery or valve to allow blood to flow properly, which often allows a patient to avoid bypass surgery. CYPHER® Stent, its latest innovation in this area, is a drug-eluting stent it enables placement of the drug Sirolimus on the stent to prevent scar tissue from forming and reclogging the artery. “With no scar tissue, the blockage doesnt return. In clinical studies and in real world clinical settings, the CYPHER® Stent has been shown to dramatically reduce the need for patients to be re-treated in the same stented artery a problem that roughly 25% of cardiac patients faced annually,” says Brant.
Cordis is involved with “the Red Dress campaign,” a weekend of health screenings for women a their local mall focusing on early identification of potential victims of heart disease.
The bottom line is that General Johnsons credo is alive and well at Cordis employees are given the resources to envision, act on, and share their creative ideas with the medical community, while also being encouraged to volunteer and give something back to their local communities. And the shareholders theyve done okay too. For the past 20 years, Johnson & Johnson has delivered double-digit increases in profits and earnings every quarter.
