U . S . Vice President of Diversity
General Motors
Tying Florida ’ s Minority Communities together …
Latin Times Interview with
Eric
Peterson
U . S . Vice President of Diversity
General Motors
By : Jolie González
Tying Florida ’ s Minority Communities together …
Latin Times : Tell us about your diversity program , what you do for GM and how long you have been doing that ? Eric Peterson : I have been on board heading up the diversity program for GM since November of last year , quite frankly I was appointed to that the job and I essentially have a couple of strategies that we are working on , one internally , is to assist our employees in giving them the confidence that General Motors respects diversity . We are also looking at inclusion because we want to create an environment for employee ’ s to feel good about the company and feel good about their opportunities and can realize their dreams of aspiring to be whatever they want to be within the Company .
Latin Times : If someone wanted to be a dealer , then who would they contact ? Eric Peterson : We have a minority dealer development department and essentially they would go to GM . com they would go to dealers and there is a drop down box where if they have an interest we have information that we can provide that will give them a background on what we do and if they have an interest in wanting to become a dealer they can complete an application with us , also if they don ’ t have all the money then we would get them in touch with the right people who can help them understand what are the needs and what kind of resources that they have to have . If they don ’ t have experience in the Auto industry then we have a year-long training program and if accepted we will sponsor them going through the year long training program , so they can get an understanding as to how a dealer operates . Once they complete the program they will be prepared essentially to operate a store that ’ s when our vessel part kicks in and we find an opportunity that makes sense for both of us , and then we are ready to invest with them .
We work with them to identify essential opportunities that they may want to buy and if they don ’ t have the full access to capital then we have an arm within GM that will support them in providing capital ; help them finance their inventories ; help them buy real estate and so we spend a lot of time in trying to make sure one , help to identify good opportunities and also match up good candidates in providing the support to help them get started in business .
Latin Times : Can we expect to see any new projects that you are working on anything special you want us to know about ? Eric Peterson : Well essentially our focus is working in the education area , because we feel that there is a real void right now in the stem areas of Science , Technology , Engineering , and Math and so what we are doing is working with a number of organizations who have the same interests of trying to help provide opportunities for kids trying to get their education . We established this year the Buick Achievers scholarship program which we allocated $ 4.5 million dollars , were letting out $ 1000- $ 2000.00 scholarships and were going to grant $ 125,000 scholarships essentially the reason for that is we are trying to provide opportunities , especially for young kids who are the first to go to college , we are providing $ 25,000.00 scholarships so they can go to schools that they can ’ t afford to go to . `
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