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INROADS,
INC.
TRAINING STUDENTS OF COLOR FOR BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
By Pam Droog
In 1970, a lot of people were moved by Dr. Martin Luther King’s
“I Have A Dream” speech. Some, in fact, were inspired to change
their lives. One of those individuals was the late Frank C. Carr
of Chicago. He quit his well-paying, corporate executive job and
moonlighted as a computer tape disk operator to pursue his own dream:
to develop and place talented minority college interns in business
and industry to prepare them for corporate and community leadership.
That was the beginning of INROADS.
“Initially, Carr would take youth from the Chicago inner city and
teach them rappelling and other survival skills,” explains Charles
Story, INROADS president and CEO. “But he came to realize, for them
to survive what they really needed were business skills.” So Carr
met with executives from major corporations who liked the INROADS
concept and who then introduced him to business leaders in different
cities, Story says, “and it caught on that way.”
INROADS began with 25 college interns and 17 sponsoring organizations.
Thirty-plus years later, the organization has placed more than 13,000
graduates and currently serves about 7,000 interns in more than
900 companies. There are more than 60 INROADS offices in the United
States and several international affiliates, including Toronto and
Saskatoon, Mexico City and Johannesburg. The organization’s headquarters
has been in St. Louis since 1973.
At the national level, there’s a governing board of 17, plus an
advisory council with a representative from each affiliate. The
local INROADS board, which serves St. Louis and the surrounding
area, also consists of 17 individuals, says chairman Jerry Carlson,
a partner at the accounting firm of KPMG LLP. He became involved
through mentoring several of his company’s INROADS interns, “then
one thing led to another,” he says.
The INROADS board includes officers from sponsoring companies, community
leaders and university representatives. Three INROADS alumni also
serve on the board, “and their input is invaluable since they were
on the front lines of the program,” Carlson says.
Board members serve three-year terms and meet quarterly. Their main
duties are to serve as the liaison between the member’s company
or campus and the community, and to participate in the ongoing strategic
review of the affiliate, Carlson says. “Above all,” he adds, “board
members solicit new corporate sponsors if they know of one that
would be a good fit,” like long-term clients Boeing, Anheuser-Busch,
May Department Stores Company, BJC Health Care, A. G. Edwards, Enterprise
Leasing, Edward Jones, Monsanto and Olin.
INROADS,
INC.
(Standing left to right): JACQUELYNE BAILEY,
vice president, Midwestern Territory, INROADS/Inc.;
MICHELE HOLTON, manager of inclusion, Edward
Jones; NEIL SEITZ, professor of finance, Saint
Louis University; JERRY CARLSON*, partner,
KPMG; CHAR RILEY, managing director, INROADS/St.
Louis, Inc. (Seated left to right): VALERIE PETERS,
director of human resources, Olin Corporation; SUE
WEISS, vice president, A.G. Edwards; JOHN DANAHY,
chairman, May Merchandising Company; CONSTANCE
ROCKINGHAM, CEO, The PYR Group; MICHAEL JOHNSON,
manager, The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Not
Pictured): MICHAEL HARDING, vice president,
plant operations, Anheuser-Busch; RUSSELL ISAAK,
retired president, CPI Corporation; WILLIAM JONES,
vice president, business development group, Anheuser-Busch;
LENITA MALJAN, vice president, human resources,
Tyco Heatlhcare/Mallinckrodt; DAVID STEWARD,
chairman and CEO, World Wide Technology, Inc.
*chairman of the INROADS/St. Louis, Inc. board
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These and other INROADS sponsors pay $3,800 per student per year
to cover the costs of recruiting, prescreening, training and year-round
coaching. “Plus, students get paid for their work at the sponsoring
companies,” Story says. At the moment there are 170 INROADS interns
working at 60 companies in the St. Louis area.
St. Louis is one of four affiliates that offer a pre-college component
program to high school juniors and seniors interested in careers
in business, computer science or engineering.
“We did this to have a deeper pool of students to recruit from,”
Story explains. Carlson adds, “It’s an opportunity for us to have
contact with those minority candidates in high school, and also
provides a good training base for them.” He notes, due to cutbacks
at local universities, INROADS is currently evaluating the program
to determine how to provide value to the upcoming interns. About
120 students participate in the pre-college program.
Another program the National board recently initiated is the Retail
Management Institute, an example of INROADS’ efforts to offer more
industry-specific internships. The May Company is a charter sponsor
of the program; other sponsors include Circuit City, Office Depot
and Target. The program is based out of St. Louis and offered by
several affiliates. The board also is pursuing sponsorship opportunities
with area nursing programs.
INROADS’ funding primarily comes from participating clients’ sponsorship
fees, plus grants and contributions. “We have some very generous
corporate sponsors who will provide supplemental funding over and
above sponsoring interns, which allows us to develop these other
programs,” Carlson says. Additional funding also allows INROADS
to put on an annual recognition banquet for sponsors, interns and
their families. Emerson sponsored the most recent banquet in July.
INROADS board members’ goals are achieved every time a corporate
sponsor hires its INROADS intern upon graduation from college. In
the past three years, 77% of the interns who received an offer of
employment accepted as compared to 25% of non-INROADS interns—an
impressive rate of success.
“As long as that continues, we’ll be able to fulfill our vision
of becoming the preferred source of people of color for positions
in business,” Story says. “Of course we always have a lot more students
than opportunities. So, we hope when companies think about diversity
in their work force, they’ll think about INROADS first.”
Pam Droog is a frequent contributor to St. Louis Commerce Magazine.
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