REWHC Presents at WHC Symposium
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PURPOSE
The purpose of this trip report is to provide highlights from the WHC Symposium, as attended by Brenda Bibb, Edgar Ortiz, Beth Ripa, and myself. The Symposium was quite a positive experience, providing a wealth of new ideas, reinforcement of ongoing activities, and recognition for Raytheon as a progressive force for environmental stewardship.

ACTION REQUESTED
Please review the supporting information below and provide questions and comments.

SUPPORTING INFORMATION
The theme of the symposium, held on Monday and Tuesday, 15-16 November, was "Beyond Borders: Reconciling Wildlife Needs & Human Activity".

Field Trip: Riderwood
On Monday morning, Edgar, Brenda, and I attended a field trip to Riderwood, a campus for people over 62 years of age. Riderwood maintains wildlife-related programs, such as reforestation, wildflower gardens, native plantings, and nest box monitoring aimed at improving the campus’ natural habitat and providing a broader scope for certification by WHC. Riderwood is part of the national network of communities developed and managed by Baltimore-based Erickson. Observations from Erickson, is that this program is a win-win between contractor and residents since it reduces construction and maintenance costs, enhances senior morale, and helps the environment.

Opening Session
On Monday afternoon, the session began with opening remarks reinforcing the theme, "Beyond Borders: Reconciling Wildlife Needs & Human Activity". In his opening remarks, Bill Howard, WHC President, praised Raytheon Naval Integration Center as a great example of a corporation working regionally, with their community and other corporations, to raise awareness of what corporations can do for wildlife. Raytheon’s activities were touted as spurring significant interest in the WHC and wildlife management by several regional organizations. Providing corroborating reinforcement was the presence, at the symposium, of Robin Smith, Public Affairs Manager of Fidelity Investments who attended Raytheon’s partnership workshop in October. Robin is excited about taking the WHC concept to her facility is Smithfield Rhode Island and beyond.

Keynote Address
The Keynote Address was provided by Michael L. Rosenzweig, Ph.D., the author of Win-Win Ecology; How Earth’s Species Can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise. Dr. Rosenzweig discovered the way the number of species at the grand scale depends on the amount of total wildlife accessible area, rather than just the number of preserves. With the majority of open space in private hands, survival of many species is less dependent on creating additional preserves, but by reconciling the voluntary use of private lands to support wildlife in concert with market forces. Education is critical, and human-wildlife interests can be reconciled for a win-win result. The WHC and its member corporations are the epitome of this concept.

Habitat & Biodiversity and Human Dimension Tracks
On Tuesday, several sessions were available to attendees based on Habitat & Biodiversity or Human Dimensions tracks. Our group attended a mix of these sessions and presented at a Human Dimensions: Employee Morale session. Specifically, I attended a Member-to-Member session discussing the roles of the Nature Conservancy and Ducks Unlimited. These organizations can be powerful regional partners in solving issues bigger than our campus wildlife needs. I also attended a session discussing the International Conservation awards. Other corporations having won such awards revealed the reasons for their success: hard work, company support, and a broad vision. In the afternoon, I attended Pollinator Practices, where many ideas to extend our gardens into a pollinator program were provided. Brenda and I presented "Engagement – A Key to Employee Involvement" to an enthusiastic audience. It was well-received and Bridgestone-Firestone and Waste Management would like to further discuss our activities and website design with us.

SUMMARY
In summary, the symposium was a very positive experience, not only for the individual attendees, but for Raytheon Naval Integration Center. Raytheon was touted as a fine example of a progressive corporation, within the family of WHC organizations, in partnering with regional corporations. Raytheon was also positively received in the Employee Morale session, having delivered a paper on employee engagement. Many ideas were obtained from the symposium to improve and extend our existing programs to align to national needs.