Toyota receives group’s Corporation of the Year award
National Minority Supplier Development Council Inc.
ATLANTA—At a black-tie awards banquet capping its four-day conference and business opportunity fair, the National Minority Supplier Development Council Inc. presented Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. with its prestigious Corporation of the Year award.
The award is presented to major corporations that are dedicated to improving the overall participation of Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American suppliers in the global corporate supply chain.
“This recognition is reserved for corporations that fully embrace the value that minority suppliers bring to the corporate supply chain,” said NMSDC President Joset Wright. “Toyota’s commitment to supplier diversity and minority supplier development is firmly embedded in the corporate culture. Its comprehensive, world-class supplier diversity process is worthy of replication.
“In winning the award, Toyota demonstrated a strong commitment to building capacity and capability of minority businesses within their corporation and in partnership with the council.
The company led two modules of council’s Centers of Excellence program—a network of regional business modules comprised of corporate supplier diversity/purchasing executives and minority business enterprise owners.”
To date, seven of the participating minority companies were awarded business directly with Toyota. The automaker also sponsored two companies in the council’s Corporate Plus program, a special classification for minority businesses with proven success in executing national contracts and the capacity to handle more.
Toyota showed its commitment to the growth of minority suppliers by spending $1.5 billion with minority businesses in 2010—a 36 percent increase over 2009. The increase earned it entry into the Billion Dollar Roundtable, and was realized during a challenging time for the company, said the council.
During that time, Toyota also deployed resources to its supply base that saved 40,000 jobs and ensured readiness for return to normal production.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The incoming freshman class at the University of Southern California is the most diverse in the university’s history, the school reported today.
Of 2,931 entering undergraduates, 25 percent are Asian, 12 percent Hispanic, 7 percent Black and 2 percent Native American or Pacific Islander, according to USC.
The university also reported that the entering class is the most upwardly mobile of any it has accepted. About 14 percent of incoming freshman are the first in their families to attend a university.
When 2nd Lt. Emily Perez was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, she became the first female African American officer to die in combat. Perez, an outstanding West Point graduate, was mourned by two communities because, while she looked like a Black woman, she came from a Black-Latino family.
Jury deliberations will continue in the trial of Donald Bottoms, Christopher Shrauger, Steven Burns and Christopher Crews, four inmates charged with murder and conspiracy in a race riot that left a Black inmate dead at a county jail facility in Castaic recently. Four other inmates, David Reynoso, Osbaldo Valenzuela, Enrique Reyes and Andres Madrigal, are also charged.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The University of Southern California enrolls the most international students of all American colleges and universities, according to a report released today.
The university enrolled 8,615 students from other countries during the 2010-11 academic year, a 62 percent increase over the last decade, according to the Institute of International Education, which produced the report.
California colleges and universities saw an overall 2.4 percent increase in the number of international students, with a total of 96,535 last year.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Los Angeles Unified School District 10th graders fared slightly better on the California High School Exit Exam than last year’s class, with 75 percent passing the math portion and the same percentage passing the English section, according to test results released today.
The scores were an improvement over last year’s 10th grade class, which had a 72 percent pass rate for the math section of the test, and 73 percent on the English section, according to the California Department of Education.
