Continuing to Serve: Veterans at Clorox
by Andy Mowery, Vice President – Global Product Supply Operations and Executive Sponsor of the VetNet Employee Resource Group
People make Clorox the company it is.
Every day, the caliber of people I get to work with inspires me. They give our brands life, they make products our consumers love and they care for each other.
Andy Mowery
Our portfolio includes popular brands like Burt’s Bees®, Kingsford® charcoal, and Hidden Valley®, as well as household staples like Clorox® cleaners and Glad® bags. You can imagine the complexity of such a diverse supply chain. Despite that, our team consistently comes up with timely and innovative solutions — and awesome execution — to keep us forging ahead.
Many on our team are military veterans. Among the nearly 8,000 men and women at Clorox are more than 440 veterans who continuously go above and beyond their duties to drive value for our company.
I believe Clorox is a company where anyone can build a meaningful career, and our culture of inclusion makes that possible. It’s not enough simply to bring in the door people with different backgrounds and experiences. We want all employees to be fully engaged and supported so they can do their best work.
Clorox veterans tour our Glad plant in Rogers, Arkansas.
Two years ago, we established an Employee Resource Group (ERG) dedicated to hiring, enabling and embracing our military family. It’s called VetNet, and I’m proud to serve as its executive sponsor. While I am not myself a veteran, my father is an Army and Navy veteran, and I am also a proud grandson and great-great-grandson of U.S. Army veterans.
The passion and dedication of our VetNet members is astonishing. It extends beyond the workplace to time outside of work devoted to helping fellow veterans succeed in life simply because “it’s the right thing to do.” At Clorox we all share “do the right thing” as a core value.
And this two-year-old ERG is an active one.
Our biggest event to date was last month’s leadership conference at our Glad Manufacturing Facility in Rogers, Arkansas. We chose Rogers because nearly 25 percent of all Clorox veterans work there.
The conference was inspirational and moving, to say the least.
Our employees set a full agenda of veteran-specific information. We invited our veterans and their allies, local representatives from the Arkansas Veterans Affairs office discussed the services they offer, and the founder of Sheepdog Impact Assistance (http://sheepdogia.org/) spoke. We were also honored to welcome U.S. Representative Steve Womack, himself a retired Colonel from the Arkansas Army National Guard.
Representative Womack closed the event by thanking Clorox for what we do for our veterans and how we highlight the value of the veteran in the workforce.
And we’re actively working to bring more U.S. veterans into our workforce.
VetNet also recently partnered with our Human Resources’ College Recruiting team to host a Day on the Job recruiting event for student veterans currently enrolled in colleges and universities near our Bay Area headquarters. As a company, we know and value the skills and leadership veterans offer.
As Memorial Day approaches, all Clorox facilities in the U.S. will again set up a Fallen Soldier Table. This commemoration invites all U.S. employees to take a moment to reflect on the true meaning of Memorial Day, which honors those military men and women who lost their lives while defending our freedom.
All of us at Clorox value the service of our military veterans and are proud to work alongside them.