Summer ERG Spotlight Part 2: MERGE (Minority ERG for Empowerment)

As part of our summer series on KBR employee resource groups (ERGs), and in commemoration of Juneteenth, In Orbit is proud to feature MERGE — KBR’s Minority Employee Resource Group for Empowerment, which was created to advance our culture of inclusion and diversity through support and connection of underrepresented groups across the company. Host John Arnold sat down with MERGE chair and founder, Johnnie Richardson, to talk about the ERG’s mission, the phenomenal work they’ve already done in the areas of education, mentorship and philanthropy, and their exciting future plans.

Transcript

IN ORBIT: A KBR PODCAST

Season 3, Episode 10

Summer ERG Spotlight Part 2: MERGE (Minority ERG for Empowerment)

John Arnold

Hello, I'm John, and this is In Orbit. We're very glad that you're along for the ride with us today and staying in our orbit.

We've got another great podcast for you highlighting the important work KBRs employee resource groups, or ERGs, are doing to create environments that support our people and allow them to bring their whole selves to work.

Now, you might ask, why are we doing a series on ERGs and focusing on social issues? And that's a fair question. The answer is that undeniably the solutions KBR delivers our next level, world changing stuff, and we love talking about them on the podcast, but without our people, we wouldn't be delivering much of anything. Our ERGs are microcosms made up of the fascinating, wonderful, complex people who are part of our global team of teams, and we just want to shine a light on those folks and give them a platform to talk about the work they're doing, as volunteers mind you, in addition to the hard work they're doing every day to make KBR a great place to work for everyone.

Last time we talked about Pride in Allies, our ERG that supports the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies. This week we're excited to talk about MERGE, which stands for Minority Employee Resource Group for Empowerment. And with me to talk about MERGE is Johnnie Richardson. Johnnie works with KBRs Defense Systems Engineering Business Unit, part of KBR Government Solutions United States as division operations analyst and facilities manager. He is also the founder and chair of MERGE. Welcome to the podcast, Johnnie. We're very happy to have you.

Johnnie Richardson

I appreciate it, John. I'm happy to be here. Any publicity, anything we can give to spread the word on MERGE, I appreciate it and I appreciate your reaching out to me and giving me an opportunity to share what MERGE is about and to get some momentum for us.

John Arnold

It is 100% my pleasure. As is our custom, we like to give our listeners an opportunity to get to know you, those who don't know you already. If you don't mind, could you just give us some of your background, your career journey and how you are arrived at KBR?

Johnnie Richardson

It's interesting. I enlisted in the military straight out of high school, joined the infantry, which again, is one of the worst branches you could probably join as a 17- or 18-year-old. Did that for a little bit and then decided I wanted to go to school, get a little bit smarter. I went to Bethune-Cookman in Daytona Beach on an ROTC scholarship. Graduated from there, became a military officer in army aviation, and flew Blackhawks and 58s for most of my career until I got closer to retirement. It was awesome.

Got closer to retirement and decided to brush up on my technical skills since I was a computer science major.

And then I switched fields into the Army Signal Corps where I eventually retired. But prior to that I was teaching up at Alabama A&M and I was a chair of the military science department taking young college students and making them military officers, and that was very rewarding as well. After I retired, I taught JROTC in the high school system here locally for a few years. But parents being parents, I figured that wasn't the right path for me. I decided to go ahead and give this corporate environment a shot, and that's how I ended up with KBR.

John Arnold

First of all, and I love saying this and it's the second time in a couple of weeks, but thank you for your service.

Johnnie Richardson

I appreciate it.

John Arnold

I love the military background and then also the background in mentoring. That's outstanding.

Johnnie Richardson

Absolutely.

John Arnold

Why don't you tell us a little bit about your current role with KBR Defense Systems Engineering?

Johnnie Richardson

For KBR, what I do locally now, I'm the project manager for a contract vehicle called Express. I manage that. I'm also over, well, I'm not over, but I help with the operational aspect of the Huntsville location. And I'm also the facility manager for now four buildings. And we're boiling that down to two buildings, which we recently moved into 165,000 square foot customer support space. We recently moved in this past month or so. I'm managing those, but I think my crowning achievement is creating and being the chair of MERGE.

John Arnold

I love to hear that. In doing some LinkedIn stalking, I hope you don't mind, I saw that we both started at KBR around the same time, which was around the beginning, getting close to the beginning of pandemic. Or maybe, I think maybe you were just after, even before that, KBR was making strides to really focus on people and, in addition to a sustainability driven company on being an equitable supportive and welcoming company for diverse talent. I and a lot of other KBR employees have seen the numbers from the most recent KBR inclusion and diversity report that show some really positive trends. But I'm curious from your perspective, in the time that you've been here, how is KBR doing and what progress do you feel like is really noticeable in regard to inclusion and diversity?

Johnnie Richardson

I think we're on the right path. I think from our CEO, Stuart [Bradie] and all the ELT [executive leadership team] members, and they all have the All In [KBR’s ERG network that highlights diversity, equity and inclusion issues], and that the pun is intended there, with moving KBR right towards that diversity, equity inclusion space. I think we've made great strides in that — everything from putting more of an emphasis on HBCU [historically Black colleges and universities] recruiting, going to those minority institutions, and which we can pull from that pot of untapped resources because there's a lot of talent in those universities and colleges. But a lot of corporations really haven't tapped in it. And I'm proud to say KBR has taken some initiatives to actually tap into that resource.

I think also another indication is their allocation for resources for the ERGs. Again, all the ERGs, they do a lot of hard work. And I think from Jenni Myles [KBR chief people officer] all the way up to Stuart all the way down, there's been a lot of resources allocated towards ERGs because they understand the importance that the ERGs have on the culture within KBR. And I think that's significant, and we are making strides to get better at that as well.

John Arnold

That's awesome. Having buy-in from the top is extraordinarily important for something like this. Last year you headed up the launch of MERGE and serve as chair. Would you mind telling us how MERGE came to be and about that mission that it has?

Johnnie Richardson

Like I said, my military background, throughout my career, I've always been mentored. I had an outlet — if I felt as though there was things I needed to get off my chest, someone that I could go to and talk to in confidence without any repercussions or judgment. When I first got here, I had conversations with my manager and on the things that we discussed, because he's former military as well, I just didn't see, again, I'm new, it may have been there, I just wasn't aware of an outlet for individuals, especially minorities, to go and say, “Hey, here are some of the concerns that we have.” I began the path of thinking of, “Okay, how can we provide this resource for KBR?” And then out of that came MERGE, and again, we kicked around a few ideas of how that worked.

And initially it was going to be a local type of organization, to where it was local to Huntsville [in the U.S. state of Alabama], but again, Jenni Myles being the person that she is, she understood the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion within the organization. We had the conversation about making this more of a global initiative so that KBR globally would benefit, not just being local to Huntsville. And that spawned the whole process of getting our board stood up and making sure we had the right people in there so that we can benefit KBR as a whole to highlight a lot of the things that minorities are doing and how do we get more into the company. It's a spectrum of things that we're doing as an organization. And again, it comes down to the support, again, from the leaders, from Stuart all the way down.

John Arnold

I think that a lot of people probably take for granted the importance of having those outlets, not only for mentoring, but like you say, just to be able to voice concerns without fear of repercussion, like you were saying. And I think that, if I remember correctly in the last year or so, and I'm sure MERGE was part of that, that there was an internal initiative to really promote — I think they referred to it as psychological safety, which is that ability to speak up to say, “Hey, I need to get this off my chest,” or even, "I've got an idea I'd like to throw around,” without feeling like you weren't going to be heard or listened to. That's outstanding.

Johnnie Richardson

Absolutely. And those are some of the things that came to light as I had more discussions. Because at the end of the day, for the most part, we are still a culture that — we haven't become comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. And that's a phrase I heard a couple of years ago. and I'll echo it. But we do have to get into that space to where we can sit down and talk about those things so that we can be better. And again, that's one of the focuses of MERGE as well.

John Arnold

Looking at LinkedIn and elsewhere, MERGE is extremely active. I love seeing all the pictures from events over the course of the year. Would you please tell our listeners what MERGE and its members have been up to in this first year?

Johnnie Richardson

We've been quite active. The biggest thing we did initially was getting our board set-up, having the right people in the right place and things of that nature. But as far as things that we've been doing within the company, within the community, and I'll go by our different locations. In Huntsville, most recently we've done things like, we've sponsored and participated in the Minority Scholarship Program. We partner with Alabama A&M, and some of the minority organizations on the campus of University of Alabama-Huntsville, we've established that program and we also have other locations that MERGE has a presence. We'll also duplicate that in those locations. We sponsor and hosted the Midwest Black Rodeo, an invitational opportunity. Again, it was created and run by minorities and it was a great success. And we're looking to make that an annual event. We will be tying in into Alabama A&M University, UAH and other HBCUs or minority institutions and partner with them to create more of a job fair or career fair for that day.

And then we roll into the rodeo, just give that opportunity, because a lot of minorities aren't familiar with rodeos. For a group of young Black men and women to go to a rodeo hosted and put on by, and all the riders are minorities. I think that that's overwhelming for a lot because they've never seen it. A lot of the students are coming from the northern states that don't have a lot of cattle, they're not familiar. I think that'd be a great opportunity for them.

We've got our Houston site that recently stood up, and that's led by Jennifer Alford. She's done a phenomenal job there. And she's got several events that are planned for her site. Most recently they've partnered with the National Society of Black Engineers, and she's leading that charge up in Houston, but it will be throughout KBR in our local MERGE chapters. And then in Lexington Park, we've got Donnita Moore, who's done a phenomenal job with holiday outreach programs with the youth. A lot of the focus has been on the grades one through five, providing them opportunities to shop and get gifts for family members. She also does some teaming with the youth as far as mentoring, coaching and teaching, providing clothes and educational items to those underprivileged individuals in her area. That's what we've been doing, and there's a lot more on the agenda and a lot of things I can go into. But that's pretty much the bulk of what we've been doing since we've been created.

John Arnold

That is a really impressive and stellar mix of educational, recruitment and philanthropic activity for just a year. That's a ton of work.

Johnnie Richardson

We've been running fast.

John Arnold

That's amazing. This episode should launch just before Juneteenth, mid-June, which is June 19th. I wonder if you would tell us a little bit about the history and cultural significance of Juneteenth. And I know especially in Texas, it's a big deal. And does MERGE have any activities planned related to those observances?

Johnnie Richardson

Absolutely. Without getting into a full history lesson, about two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, there is probably about a half a million Black men, women and children that were still enslaved. And then on June 19th, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the war was over, and that slavery in the United States had been abolished. And then recently, 2021, Joe Biden signed legislation, which obviously made it a federal holiday. And the phrase Juneteenth comes about from the combination of June and the 19th day creating Juneteenth.

What we have planned is each site is building their plan, and I don't want to put too much out because it may be overwhelming, but we do have plans. Just on the surface, we've been doing panel discussions at various sites. I know Jennifer's planning some museum tours for some of her co-workers and to get educated may not be the right term, but to reintroduce them and get them familiar with some of the significant events that took place. She'll be doing some museum tours in her area, and we're encouraging our other MERGE sites to do the same. We'll do our educational moments, and that's just sending something out through a comms with some historical significance tied to it. We'll continue to do that. Once again, there'll be some local events at each MERGE site, and it'll be unique to their specific site.

John Arnold

Outstanding. Then let's go a little further down the road here, what's on the horizon for MERGE in the second half of 2023 and beyond?

Johnnie Richardson

Right now, I'm in discussions with a couple of the ELTs and what we're trying to devise as a plan of creating opportunities for our youth in grades K [kindergarten] through eight, to provide them introductions to NASA, space and science and those types of things — to get them energized with importance of understanding STEM — science, engineering, technology, mathematics. And I think they added arts in there now. We call it STEAM. But just introducing them at an earlier age so they grow into some of those skills that KBR is looking for. It's a win-win for both sides of it.

John Arnold

Absolutely.

Johnnie Richardson

And we're also looking at doing more scholarship opportunities, more community service, and we've got a high ceiling. Ultimately, and this may not come next year, but ultimately, we've had discussions about creating some sort of annual conference to which we would bring leaders in, managers, middle managers, and talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and how can we become better as an organization. And then this would be an annual event to where we can come together and get educated. Because let's face it, this initiative — we're only scratching the surface. This is something that is not going to go away, because maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion is hard work, and it requires a commitment from everyone. And we can't say we've checked the block and say, "We finally arrived. We have what right looks like." Because again, this is an evolving process, and we'll always continue to need work.

John Arnold

It is something that is extremely important, and I hope that people listening do realize that it does require a commitment from everyone. And with that in mind, how can folks that are interested in getting involved with MERGE help out?

Johnnie Richardson

We've got our MERGE Share Drive, our Share [internal SharePoint] site. Also, we're on Yammer. We've got LinkedIn. If you can search us in any one of those, just search for MERGE, we should pop up there. If not, you can send me an email — johnnie.richardson@us.kbr.com — and I'll be more than happy to forward those links to you. And like I say, it is just getting involved is an important thing and just doing your research. We don't want individuals to randomly go sign up. And my philosophy's always been, the more people we have, the less everyone has to do. And like I say, just go out, do your research — and not just MERGE, but all the other ERGs. And they do phenomenal work. But go out and join, MERGE first though.

Go out and join and have an impact. Because that's the important thing, is the more people we have in these ERGs, I think the better we're going to be, because that way you have a better perspective of what your neighbor's facing and other coworkers are facing, things of that nature. The more we have, the better conversations we can have so that we can move forward and create that diversity, equity, inclusion environment and help KBR continue to be the employer of choice.

John Arnold

Powerful words sir. Before I let you go, number one, thank you again. But before I let you go, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Johnnie Richardson

No, John, I just appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to your audience, and you're doing a great job. I generally have a little shortcut for your podcast.

John Arnold

Good!

Johnnie Richardson

Great job there. And again, I was truly honored you called me. I was like, “Hey, dude, I'm a nobody.”

John Arnold

No.

Johnnie Richardson

But I appreciate the opportunity to come on with you and share what MERGE is about. Again, it is not about me at MERGE. We're trying to set it up. MERGE will be something that will always be relevant and that we have an impact within KBR.

John Arnold

As I said before we got going, your reputation preceded you. And I was really, really looking forward to this conversation. And number two, that something that a lot of employees and listeners that aren't part of KBR might not realize is that people, when they're involved with an employee resource group, they're doing this completely in volunteer time. You are giving your time and talents outside of the enormously complex work that you're doing, and that goes for people in all of the ERGs. But MERGE, clearly from this long and impressive list, is certainly no exception. I just want to thank you for everything that you're doing for underrepresented groups within KBR and how that, one hopes, bleeds into the mass population of our team of teams. Thank you again for being on the show.

Johnnie Richardson

Not a problem. And I appreciate it, John, and efforts and things that you're doing will help us get there.

John Arnold

Thank you, sir.

CONCLUSION

John Arnold

As Johnnie said, work around diversity, equity and inclusion is hard — and it doesn't stop — and it requires commitment from everyone. 

We want to thank Johnnie Richardson for speaking with us about MERGE and its important role in the life of KBR and the work they're doing to help ensure KBR is a great place where everyone can belong, connect, and grow.

Again, if you're interested in learning more about MERGE, you can look them up on Yammer or visit their SharePoint site, which you can access through KBR Home if you're a KBR employee.

Or you can email Johnnie directly at johnnie.richardson@us.kbr.com.

We also want to wish everyone a happy and festive Juneteenth.

As always, I want to thank our amazing producer, Emma, for her hard work.

And finally, if you like what you heard today or if you have an idea for a future episode, let us hear from you by emailing us at inorbit@kbr.com.

And that's all from us. Thanks so much, listeners around the world for being with us and staying in our orbit. Take care.