GSA Daily Staff Report
Published Oct. 30, 2009

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP, with an office in Spartanburg, was presented the 2009 Excellence in Workplace Diversity Award presented by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the South Carolina Diversity Council

The 5th Annual South Carolina Excellence in Workplace Diversity Awards in Columbia recognized the state’s top companies among large, medium and small business categories. Parker Poe, based in Charlotte, N.C. with six offices throughout the Carolinas, won for the small employer category.

“These companies honored for their excellence in workplace diversity understand fostering diversity is a strategic business objective that benefits everyone,” said Otis Rawl Jr., president and CEO of the state chamber. “Implementing a comprehensive diversity program is a long-term commitment and a business imperative for companies determined to compete in the global marketplace.”

Parker Poe focuses on recruiting and retaining women and minority lawyers through a number of special initiatives, including mentoring, annual women and minority roundtable discussions, special business development programs and a formal alternative work schedules policy. Parker Poe created the director of professional development and diversity position in 2006, one of the first law firms in the Southeast to charge a lawyer with this type of oversight of diversity initiatives.

Goodwill Industries of Lower South Carolina was named winner of the medium employer category. In the large employer category, the 2009 Excellence in Workplace Diversity Award was awarded to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC.

Other nominees included: AnMed Health, Bon Secours St. Francis Health System, Greenville Hospital System, Nationwide Insurance Co., U.S. Engine Valve, Wilbur Smith Associates and Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC.