Minnesota Heals
Hope, Education And Law & Safety

Michael Bonsignore
Chairman and CEO of Honeywell

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Honeywell is a long-time supporter of the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility and my predecessor as CEO, Jim Renier, is its current chairman. I want to start out by saying I’m really not here as an individual. I’m here as a member of an outstanding group of people from around the Twin Cities who are trying to make a difference in our quality of life and our public safety.

It’s great to have this opportunity to tell you a little bit about the community Anti-Crime Initiative, which has been named "Minnesota HEALS." "HEALS" stands for Hope, Education And Law & Safety. The more people we can get talking about our crime problem, debating it, discussing it, questioning it, improving it, the better off we are going to be as a community. We have everything to gain by fighting crime and improving our community.

It passed without much notice, but the Twin Cities marked an anniversary of sorts last week. It was just a year ago -- on June 30, 1996 -- that our city was written up on page one of the Sunday edition of one of the world’s most influential newspapers, The New York Times. The headline of the article was:

"A Nice City’s Nasty Distinction: Minneapolis Murder Rate Soars"

The article painted a vivid picture of kids playing kick-the-can, amid a rain of bullets in our inner-city neighborhoods; referenced the nickname "Murder-apolis" ¾ which stuck and shocked all of us when we heard it for the first time; and gleefully warned New Yorkers to stay out of Minnesota because it was a dangerous place.

On July 1 of this year, there was another headline worth noting, this time in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It read:

"A Quiet Killing Month. New Strategies get Credit for Drop in Homicides."

This article reported that in June, Minneapolis experienced just ONE homicide, versus the 12 in June 1996. There had been 29 killings for all of 1997 to date, compared to 43 last year. That is still far too many, but 14 fewer tragedies so far this year gives all of us reason for hope. Now, one month does not a trend make, but there is no question that something is different and we have to make sure we can continue to build on our great start and improve the momentum.

Our National Reputation at Stake

Like many of you, I work for a company with strong ties to the Twin Cities. Honeywell was "born" in Minneapolis 112 years ago. We have seen this city grow and prosper, become a national center of business and culture and become one of this country’s truly great cities. And we are proud to be a company with its roots, headquarters and more than 7,000 employees in the Twin Cities.

But the perception of Minneapolis and St. Paul as model communities with deep-rooted values and a high quality of life is just as perishable in our community as it has been in Boston or New York or other cities. Before I came to Minneapolis, I heard that this was a great place to live and raise kids, that there was a quality of life that other people in the country envied. And as I travel around and tell people where I live, I always get a very positive reaction – "oh, what a great city." So we have this quality of life which is very important to perpetuate. Frankly, beyond our quality of life, we don’t have an over-abundance of promotable assets. People certainly don’t move here for our weather! So, I think it behooves us to stop and think about the fact that this perception is reality whatever it is. If it’s positive, it’s reality, and if it’s negative, it’s also reality.

You don’t have to travel far or talk to many people before it’s clear that our city’s image has been tarnished by the face of crime. Specifically:

• By violent crime,

• By drug-related crime,

• By gang-related crime.

Our Motivation for Minnesota HEALS

We, at Honeywell, probably see this more vividly than most. As most of you know, Honeywell’s Corporate Offices -- at 4th Avenue and 28^th Street -- are in the Phillips Neighborhood. Honeywell made a commitment to that neighborhood long ago and we are committed to work as a part of the community, not by being divorced from it. That gives us a different perspective of the crime problem than that of companies in other parts of the Twin Cities. For Honeywell employees, violent crime is not a theoretical problem. It’s a reality.

For instance, last summer, the windows of our headquarters building sustained bullet damage on three separate occasions, most dramatically when shots were fired during a drug deal near our property. Bullets shattered glass in a walkway between our building and the parking lot. Thankfully, no one was injured, because the shooting occurred at 10:30 p.m., but I hate to think about what could have happened had it occurred in the middle of the day. We encourage employees to use the Honeywell Plaza, the green space between our building and 35W. On at least one occasion last year while employees were out on the Plaza having lunch, shots were fired between two cars traveling down 28^th street. So we have a very real problem. These incidents made it clear to me that we, as a corporation, had a responsibility to address this issue, in partnership with government, law enforcement and the community and that perhaps by being a catalyst we could bring some collective energy to looking at this problem.

Gordon Sprenger of Allina is my partner in all this, along with Ebenezer and many other organizations around the Phillips neighborhood.

As Gordon said to me one day, "You have to convince your employees to come to work every day. I have to convince my employees to come to work and my customers to come to Abbott Northwestern hospital." They survey patients being treated at Abbott Northwestern, and the number one issue is public safety/personal safety.

Gordon and I, along with a number of other CEOs in cooperation with the Business Partnership, called on the Governor and the mayors to tell them we really need to address this problem and we need to address it urgently. We said we know there is a lot of energy being applied to this problem already but we are not seeing the kind of progress we need. And I am happy to say that the Governor was extremely receptive, as were the mayors and the law enforcement agencies.

There were some things we had to do. We began to meet regularly We pulled this task force together. We pulled a steering committee together. And, I am happy to say that we have made really good progress in terms of trying to facilitate the communication and coordination among all the various parties.

We believe that "strong companies need strong communities" to grow and thrive. You simply can’t have a strong business base in a weak community. Now, I look at the wonderful partnership that Minneapolis and St. Paul enjoy, the public-private partnership that has to be built on a similar solid foundation. We have a responsibility to our employees, to ensure they feel safe when they come to work. Safe when they leave the building after dark. Safe when they drive through the neighborhoods.

We want to be able to attract the best and the brightest employees. I don’t want candidates coming to be interviewed in our headquarters building and asking us questions about their personal safety. With the economy as it is in the United

States today and the demand for talented people, we simply can’t be dragging that kind of a "boat anchor" behind us.

We want to feel proud to host our customers. I want our customers to come to our world headquarters, visit our demonstration centers, and meet our people. I don’t want them to be worried about their safety.

We want our neighbors, who live all around us in the Phillips neighborhood, to feel safe. It is very difficult for me to appreciate the fear that they feel living in that neighborhood. But it is part of our obligation to help our neighbors feel safe in their homes and in their neighborhoods. We simply won’t have it any other way.

Honeywell has a long and proud heritage of community involvement. We invest heavily in improving the community, focusing on long-term solutions with efforts in three major areas:

• Education

• Job creation and training

• Affordable housing

We plan to continue those efforts. But we’re also putting substantial energy and resources into fighting crime.

The Need for Partnership

When we took this issue to the Business Partnership, we discovered that this is not just a Phillips neighborhood problem. This is not just a Minneapolis problem. This is a Minnesota problem. When communities crack down on gangs and drug dealers, these people tend to get displaced form one part of the community to another part of the community. Unless we work on a broader basis, we’ll just move the problem from one part of the area to another.

In Minnesota HEALS, we have put together a terrific working coalition. We have worked with the judges, the prosecutors, the probation officers, the police officers, the community groups. There has been tremendous willingness on the part of this organization to get together and work together.

I would like to complement the local news media, and the Star Tribune management in particular, for the way this crime initiative has been covered in the press. I think it has been covered fairly and enthusiastically. This helps raise the awareness level to keep people talking about the crime problem, asking questions about it. I thank the media for their support.

The visibility of our efforts is really important here. We can’t let this be just another public service campaign with a catchy name. We are trying to create a safe and peaceful summer for 1997. That seemed like a very ambitious objective when we started, but we are off to a good start. I would like to be able to stand up here with equal pride at the end of July, August, and September and see dramatic improvements in the homicide rate in the city as this continues to unroll.

We also want long term strategies that will help us get to the root causes of crime and help us work on the quality of life issues.

First Things First

One of our first steps was to engage an expert: Dr. Chuck Wexler, of the Police Executive Research Forum, an organization that has worked with the metropolitan areas around the United States. During one of my first meetings with Chuck, he told me that solving our crime problem was "a piece of cake" compared to the challenges faced by New York and Boston. He said: "If the community pulls together, you can solve this problem quickly." He said the desire, the size of the problem, the variety of options available made our situation much more encouraging that what he had seen in New York and Boston. Chuck, working with David Kennedy from Harvard’s Kennedy School, began by examining what has and has not worked in other cities, including Boston, which has dramatically reduced the number of juvenile violent crimes. They also examined Minneapolis crime data to help focus our fight against violent crime in areas where we can have the greatest impact. Chuck and David studied all 264 homicides that occurred in the Twin Cities between 1994 and the spring of 1997. We wanted a good database. Their research tells us a great deal.

First, we know where these murders are taking place: Minneapolis homicides are concentrated in two areas of the city: South Central and the Near North. Second, we know how they are committed: guns are involved in more than two-thirds of violent crimes. There are too many guns on the street, too many illegal and unregistered guns, and they are being used. Third, we know who’s doing the killing and who’s being killed:

• Both suspects and victims are overwhelmingly young, African-American, and male. Most are between 14 and 24 years of age.

• Nearly half of the homicides are gang- related, even though only 4% of the city’s youth are gang members.

• Nearly half of the victims and three-quarters of the suspects have been arrested before. In fact, they average more than seven arrests before being involved in a homicide. So you see the importance of getting the probation officers, the judges, and the law enforcement people together to look at this problem systematically and see how these people drop in the crack as they get arrested and handed off in the next step in the legal and judicial process. One suspect had been arrested more than 40 times before his first homicide arrest.

This tells us that those involved in violent crime are already well known to the system: from police officers and judges … to prosecutors and probation officers.

Actions and Priorities

The results of this extensive research have already led to new actions and priorities in both law enforcement and the community. First, law enforcement. Police probation officers are visiting known violent criminals on probation to ensure they are meeting their probation restrictions. The Minneapolis Police Department has streamlined its structure, so that the gang unit, homicide and criminal investigation divisions all report to one supervisor. This improves communication, coordination and minimizes the risk of the ball being dropped along the way. Communications between St. Paul and Minneapolis homicide and gang units have also improved and they’re working together. The relationship between Hennepin and Ramsey Counties and respective city organizations has improved. A new state gang task force has been formed to target the most active criminals. This effort is making use of federal resources like never before, including agencies of the Justice Department: the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the FBI, all coordinating through the U.S. Attorney. There is also a community-building element. Law enforcement by itself is meaningless if we can’t reinforce the value and the substance of the community.

Minnesota HEALS is working to:

• Expand the availability of jobs for youth, in a cooperative effort between the public and private sectors. For example: Honeywell and Allina are helping fund the Mayor’s "Clean Sweep" program to provide jobs for more than 20 youths in the Phillips Neighborhood;

• We’re creating more job opportunities for residents of the neighborhoods most affected by crime and poverty. General Mills, 3M, Allina and Honeywell are involved in initiatives that will result in hundreds of new jobs where they are most needed in our community;

• We’re expanding park and recreational programs, to provide more opportunities for young people to take part in organized and supervised activities. Hours of operation at many Minneapolis parks have been extended … but more needs to be done.

• Community needs are being analyzed, and we’re communicating the availability of community resources to those who need them most.

• We’re trying to expand mentoring programs with additional commitment from the business community as part of the President’s initiative to get businesses and neighborhoods connected through mentoring programs.

• The school day is going to be expanded and more after-school programs will be offered, starting this fall. Minneapolis Public Schools have already changed class start and finish times. So children are not starting school so early and then finishing classes at 1:30 or 2 p.m. to be unsupervised for hours until their parents come home.

That gives you some idea of what Minnesota HEALS is all about. It is a collective effort. It is very, very important for business. As CEO of Honeywell, I have an obligation to the employees who come into the Phillips neighborhood every day, to make sure they are safe, and motivated, and excited about their jobs and the company. We also need to look beyond this basic need to the long term implications of crime on the local community, the Twin Cities, and the state.

We in business are certainly not experts in law enforcement, but we can support those who are. And we can support efforts to improve the community through our by applying our resources effectively and by encouraging others in the business community to go along with us.

What You Can Do

So, I leave you with a question: What can you do? How can your company get involved?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Look at the potential within your own company to create jobs for young adults. There’s a lot of talk about job creation, but we have to differentiate between talk and action on jobs for young adults.

• Develop your own or join existing mentoring programs. There are so many opportunities to support mentoring between your employees and the community. It can be tremendously fun and stimulating.

• Support or contribute to various initiatives being developed by community groups. There are thousands of good ideas all over the community right now that need support. I am not talking, necessarily about financial support; I’m talking about enthusiastic, personal support. You can help identify them and what kind of help they need.

• Contribute to media efforts to give visibility to the community’s "zero tolerance" stand on violent crime. We’ve made some wonderful progress, and I hope it continues.

• Talk to your city, county and state officials about the importance of this issue and how crime is affecting your business. Hold your public officials accountable for progress. Talk is cheap. This is a time for measurable results. We have some, it’s just a beginning. I would like to think that we can look back in four or five months from now and realize that we have made a difference.

Again, let me reiterate that I’m here on behalf of a wonderful group of people who are working hard to make this successful. Honeywell is one little tiny cog in this big wheel.

New Yorkers, Bostonians, Seattle-ites have been confronted with exactly the same problems we face, only on a much more pervasive and difficult level. And, if you go to New York today, there is a palpable difference in the city in terms of the feeling of public safety that one has walking about the streets of the city. New Yorkers are feeling good about themselves. Boston has made incredible progress with their management of violent crime, as has Seattle. They have become models for the rest of the country.

I keep hearing Chuck Wexler’s words that "this is a piece of cake," compared to other cities. If we can address our crime issues collectively, we can get them behind us and look back with great pride on what we have been able to accomplish. Together, we CAN make a difference.

I think it would be wonderful to open my Sunday New York Times a year from now and see a glowing profile of the Twin Cities, focusing on the many positive things our community has to offer. And mentioning in passing, that a coalition of business, government, law enforcement agencies and the community has effectively dealt with the issues of drugs, guns and homicides in our communities. Thank you.

Michael Bonsignore is the Chairman and CEO of Honeywell Inc. This speech was given at a meeting sponsored by the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility and the Minnesota Business Partnership on July 8, 1997.

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