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Mitsubishi
Motors has a highly successful soccer team in Japan's professional
soccer league, the Urawa Reds, whose members include stars
of international standing. And the automaker's distributor
in Uganda also sponsors a highly successful soccer team.
The members of that team might not be international stars--yet--but
the team has something that its counterpart in Japan lacks:
girls.
Victoria Motors' team, the Diamonds,
comprises 14 boys and girls aged six to seven. They led
the Kampala Kids League for most of the 2001 season and
ended up in second place: not bad in a field of 36 teams.
Urawa Reds, better watch out. |
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Aiming for a slot in the
World Cup |
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Soon
after the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Alan
Steinberg, a Mitsubishi Fuso truck dealer, was carrying
food, water, and supplies to the rescue workers in Manhattan.
Steinberg exemplified the contributions by Mitsubishi companies
toward alleviating the trauma of the September 11 terrorist
attacks.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries provided
space in its Rockefeller Center offices to an industrial
equipment trading company that lost its workplace in the
World Trade Center. Mitsubishi Electric Power Products created
a memorial fund for the crew and passengers on a jetliner
who lost their lives in overcoming their hijackers.
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi employees participated
in nighttime relief efforts at a Red Cross center at the
World Trade Center site. The bank's subsidiary Union Bank
of California occupied offices in a World Trade Center building.
All 106 employees there evacuated safely under the heroic
leadership of bank vice president Lawrence Fitzgerald. "Everyone
was impacted in one way or another by these attacks,"
noted Rayna Aylward, of the Mitsubishi Electric America
Foundation. "Being able to work together on a special
project ... really helped start the healing process."
Employees at a Union Bank of California branch
in Fresno held a T-shirt sale to raise money for the Red
Cross. "Everyone is doing something to chip in during
this terrible tragedy," said branch manager Jana Baker.
"Being on the West Coast, I felt so helpless. The T-shirt
sale is our way of doing something to help our nation recover.
Hand
in Hand
Managements
and employees at Mitsubishi companies in the United States
worked together after the attacks to coordinate their response.
Companies shared information about organizations that were
handling donations. They organized blood drives and fund-raising
and gave employees time off to attend memorial services
and related events.
Numerous Mitsubishi companies made donations
to the relief effort, and several offered matching gifts
to double the value of employee donations. The donors included
the U.S. operations of Meiji Life, Mitsubishi Cable Industries,
Mitsubishi Estate, Mitsubishi Rayon, Mitsubishi Trust, Nikon,
and NYK Line, in addition to the companies mentioned elsewhere
in this article and many others. In all, Mitsubishi companies
donated about $4.4 million to the relief effort. That was
13% of the total donations by Japanese-affiliated companies,
as estimated by the Japan Institute for Social and Economic
Affairs.
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