Acceptance of Diversity and Inclusion
As a young child attending elementary school down highway 160 just one county over, once a year, many of our friends would return. At the time, we didn’t know or care that their parents were migrant farm workers, we just knew it was time to see our friends again. Although the Southeast US is widely regarded as one of the least diverse and open places in the world, I see this very differently. Our little area of the country and state was, has been and always will be open and accepting of everyone. We don’t talk about it much, because our area has been doing this before it was “cool”. Not accepting and welcoming diverse populations is the exception rather than the rule.
Morristown is home to manufacturing companies from 7 different countries and you would be hard pressed to find a more diverse population in all of Tennessee. The wonderful part of this is that we all embrace this and are so accepting of this notion that going out of our way to promote this seems foreign. Why? Because we have always done it. The national culture is promoting this now, but like many things, Hamblen County was doing this well 25 years ago.
We all have areas in which we can improve. As I look at the chamber wall of chairmen in the boardroom, I can see the shift in gender roles on that wall. As a chamber board, almost yearly now, we elect more female than male board members. The interesting thing is, this was beginning to happen in Morristown while I was still in diapers; we just never made a big deal about it. Our community and business success is attributed to strong diverse acceptance of both nationality and gender, and our chamber has embraced this shift for years and looks forward to continuing our contribution to a community who not only accepts this notion but embraces it as our norm.