An HPC team ready to clean up their adopted road.

It’s a two-mile stretch of Campton Road in Inman, South Carolina—also known as State Rd. S-42-11—and it’s been adopted by High-Performance Conductors (HPC), a business unit of the International Wire Group. Below, Baine Fairley, director of EHS & HR, explains why it was not a hard sell to get volunteers.

HPC has about 160 employees, and of those, about 40 volunteered for the adopt-a-road initiative that to date has seen three clean-up sessions. The initial foray was the toughest one, involving a lot of heavy lifting over the fourhour- long session. Subsequent return visits were easier and took about half the time. It might not seem like an especially important task, but there was a reason why people were willing to do this on their own time.

HPC has occupied a building on this stretch of Campton Road since 1970. There are only four other manufacturing plants in the area, and the rest is residential. The road was chosen because we wanted to give back to the community, which has put up over the years with our operations, including a lot of trucks coming and going. One thing we could do was clean for those people. Our volunteers were provided with yellow vests, trash pickup sticks and orange bags. We kept count of the number of collected trash bags and posted it internally. We also highlighted the initiative in our marketing newsletter, which was distributed between our employees and posted on IWG website and in social media. We did that not for recognition, but to give back to the community we operate in.

There is a sense of pride in doing this. The road had previously been adopted by another company, but no actual cleaning of the grounds was ever done. Since we adopted the stretch, it has been cleaned. There’s a sign with our company name and logo, so passengers on the road know who adopted the stretch and really keeps it clean. We now do this four times a year, and a few employees have been known to do more on their own. It’s our turf, and we like seeing it look right.

Manufacturers GIVING BACK

This is part 4 of Wire Journal International's first-ever feature presenting 16 manufacturers that have given back to their communities: hundreds others could just as easily have been here. Each entry has a unique story, yet the common thread is the people—of all ranks—who care about their companies as well as their communities. Big volunteer efforts deserve applause, but so do smaller ones as they all head in the same direction. In a time when there is seldom a lack of daunting news, one can take pride in the industry spirit.

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Companies Featured:
Hitachi Cable America (now Proterial Cable America), Viakable, Acme Wire Products, High-Performance Conductors (HPC), Kris-Tech, Allied Wire, Ulbrich Stainless Steels & Special Metals, Inc., Cerrowire, Belden, Fort Wayne Metals, Optimus Steel, Prysmian, Minnesota Wire, Southwire, Service Wire, Alloy Wire International
Bonus Content:
> Employer alert! Volunteers make for a better workforce.
> How can a small business start a ‘giving back’ program?