Kimberly Withers
Vice President & Associate General Counsel, Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, CAES
In 2023, the CAES DE&I Committee established its first employee resource groups: CAESVets, supporting veterans, and RENEW, focusing on women’s issues. CAESVets recently organized the company’s Veterans Day events, including distributing challenge coins to veterans and hosting a webinar to discuss a supplemental insurance plan offered to veteran employees during benefits enrollment.
RENEW recently hosted a webinar featuring CAES board member and former Sen. Martha McSally. The group also set up a 2024 calendar for DE&I holidays the company will celebrate and introduced a DE&I training module for all people leaders in the organization for the first time. Its largest event, “Taste of CAES” in October, invited employees to share food, decorations and music from their heritage with colleagues. This event was a big success, with hundreds of employees participating and sharing their cultural dishes and backgrounds, said Kimberly Wither.
“As someone whose ‘day job’ at CAES is unrelated to DE&I, I have seen firsthand how an inclusive and diverse workplace is key to the success of the business,” she said. “Fostering an environment where employees can bring their true selves to work and feel part of the larger CAES team positively impacts our ability to innovate, produce mission critical hardware, and mitigate risks. I look forward to continuing to lead the CAES DE&I Committee with a focus on promoting an inclusive culture so that all employees can thrive at CAES.”
Why Watch
In 2024, Wither’s team is aiming high for DE&I at CAES, concentrating on building an inclusive team environment throughout the business. The team plans to expand the ERGs, establishing chapters and events at every CAES facility. Plans are also to develop a DE&I page on the company’s external website to showcase the diversity of CAES’s workforce.
The DE&I Committee has the goal of providing free DE&I learning resources to the workforce on topics like unconscious bias and working well with everyone.
“When the leader of our newly established DEI Committee left the company for another opportunity, I was pleased when Kim (and co-lead Jennifer) volunteered to take on a leadership role,” said Steffanie Easter, CAES chief sustainability officer. “Her commitment, compassion and desire to do what is best for our workforce and organization and her focus on ‘getting things done’ has taken the committee to the next level in a short period of time. I’m excited about what lies ahead for our DEI efforts at CAES.“