DC Velocity - December 2009

QTell us first a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you ended up in your current position.

AI have worked at Hewlett-Packard for oughly 20 years in a variety of engineering and supply chain functions. My formal training is in engineering—actually in materials science and reliability engineering. I held some positions early in my career doing manufacturing process development for what was then cutting-edge electronic assembly processes.

Eventually, I came to lead a central engineering team. As director of that team, I was responsible for launching HP’s program to meet a new requirement for electronics hardware—the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous

Substances or RoHS directive, which took effect in 2006. It basically required that we change the materials for pretty much every hardware part in our products, certainly every one that had an electronic function. This was a big cross-

company initiative that cut across the entire value chain, and it was one of the things that led us to start focusing more on social and environmental responsibility in the supply chain.

QYou oversee programs to implement HP’s social and environmental responsibility policy in the company’s supply chain operations. What does that involve?

AWe look at it as taking a life-cycle view, starting with the design of the product and the materials used in its construction— both things that we choose to address voluntarily to make the product more environmentally preferable and things we’re required to address to meet the laws in various parts of the world controlling the substances that can be in our product. In the manufacturing step, we think about supplier factory practices. We are interested in the labor, safety, environmental, and ethics practices of our suppliers. That has been a major focus of ours for the last seven or eight years and is now one that we engage in with a lot of the industry. The third piece is

packaging and distribution, both of which can have a significant environmental impact. The last part is the end-of-life area, ensuring that the products customers return to us for recycling or disposal are properly dealt with. Part of that is making sure any hazardous materials are handled in an environmentally responsible way.