A story in the college newsletter. A common passion.

The confluence of these two events led to alumnus Don Fels ’76 coming to campus and speaking to a class earlier this year on corporate and social responsibility in the global marketplace.

Don knows a lot about the subject. Don currently works for Graves Imports, a company that specializes in private label shoes, based in Nashville, Tenn. Graves Imports sells 4 million pairs of private label shoes, with the factory producing $1 billion in sales annually. He has been involved in the manufacturing and importing of footwear from Asia for the past 30 years. He became involved in researching this issue as the roles of corporate and social responsibility developed.

The College of Applied Human Sciences featured stories about social responsibility in the spring 2007 newsletter. Don noticed them and wrote to Molly Eckman, professor of Design and Merchandising, who teaches a class on international production and trade in the apparel industry. Eckman’s class addresses corporate and social responsibility, which includes the need for sensitivity to cultural norms and religious practices in the global production of apparel and footwear products.

Don and Molly talked, and the conversation led to Don being a guest lecturer in her class last fall. Don believes that an understanding of corporate and social responsibility is imperative for students who are going into the Design and Merchandising field to learn prior to holding managerial positions in which important decisions are made.

In his lecture, Don said that social responsibility has become more relevant over the last ten years since an increasing number of U.S. based companies decided to outsource. Outsourcing provides many incentives to companies in the highly competitive apparel and footwear industry including cheaper labor and less expensive and less restrictive environmental and safety standards. Unfortunately, sometimes corporate decisions negatively affect foreign workers and lead to unsafe conditions such as dangerous factory equipment, poor lighting, low wages, and underage workers.

“Social Responsibility wasn’t in people’s minds when I started,” said Don. “It was not uncommon to see people in Asia, workers in the factories, with one or two fingers missing. But no one really cared. The concept of social responsibility just wasn’t there.”

Issues related to corporate and social responsibility were uncovered in the mid-1990s when the media exposed working conditions of foreign workers who had been contracted by a number of U.S. apparel and footwear companies.

“The media was then turned on to working conditions for foreign laborers,” he said. “Every major company adopted terms of engagement with their overseas operations.” As this topic became more relevant, companies quickly improved conditions in order to bring their standards into compliance.

“In the beginning, efforts were focused specifically on the physical plant such as lighting, emergency exits, fire extinguishers, ventilation, noise, bathrooms and dorms,” he said. “Those didn’t take very long to correct. Then came more ‘transparency,’ and companies hired compliance officers at many places to look at all the working conditions, including environmental issues.”

Don applauded classes like Molly’s “to set students up for success and understanding” before going into managerial positions in the workplace.

“Don’s presentation to the class contributed immensely to setting the stage for the entire course,” said Molly. “He really brought to life for the students many of the topics that we discussed in the course and we continually referred back to his comments throughout the semester. In addition, Don helped students to understand the complexities of social responsibility and inspired a number of students who are now considering careers focused upon corporate and social responsibility in the apparel and footwear industry.”

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Contact:  Lori Sims
Telephone:  970.491.5669
Email:  Lori.Sims@colostate.edu