Meet Hispa-Lucente; Lucent Technologies - organización dentro de la compañía Lucent Technologies que sirve a la comunidad latina - TA: organization within Lucent Technologies which serves the Latino community

"We make the things that make Telecommunications work"

Lucent Technologies is the leading designer, developer, and manufacturer of telecommunications products, and in that vast entity which encompasses some 52 countries worldwide, there is a remarkable organization known as HISPA Lucent Technologies.

Backed by 13 years of service within the former AT&T corporation, the organization was formerly known as plain HISPA.

As AT&T split itself into three corporations, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and NCR, -- HISPA itself split as well in three organizations serving the Hispanic employees of each of these three corporations. The focus is mainly targeted at education, community service, recruitment, professional development and advancement, and corporate responsibility.

At the helm, and guiding HISPA Lucent to resounding success is President Hoverth Serrate, who has been involved with HISPA since 1988, when he joined AT&T Bell Labs. His inaugural speech last year addressed the need for Lucent Technologies to recapture the essence of affirmative action and work on it.

"We have all the people. We have different ideas. Now we need to listen to all the people and their different ideas. Only then will we achieve world-class results," he said. And he added: "Wish for me to succeed. If I succeed, my team succeeds. If my team succeeds, Lucent Technologies achieves the results we need in order for all of us to work in a productive, high-performance environment."

Striving to further those goals, Serrate stresses that HISPA is community-guided, and education is the key. "We work with all 26 chapters throughout the nation in fund-raising, mentoring, providing scholarships, and an ever-increasing legacy of commitment to the corporation and to the Hispanic community.

"I personally feel that Hispanics are a high-performance group. Our culture can make a big difference in corporate America," Columbian-born Serrate told HISPANIC TIMES.

At Lucent Technologies there are approximately 5,000 U.S.-based employees, and as many or more internationally. In addition to the 26 HISPA chapters in the U.S., there are as many or more on the global level.

Serrate points with special pride to the chapters having a raised more than $1 million last year with fund-raising events such as golf tournaments and walk-a-thons. He gratefully acknowledges the Guadalajara Chapter, which sponsors an elder-care program in the greater Guadalajara community. And with special congratulations, President Serrate singles out the HISPA Lucent Technologies ASK Project (Advancing Science for Kids). For the past five years, the ASK Projects has delivered its outreach "Museum in a School" program to select elementary schools in the Chicagoland area. The mission is to "introduce technology and science to elementary school children, and motivate them to excel in school studies."

Since 1992, ASK has sponsored numerous schools and touched the lives of more than 30,000 children. HISPA Lucent is proud to be a sponsor of this remarkable traveling childrens' museum.

Looking ahead to Mission 2000, HISPA Lucent's strategy might be described in a three-fold axiom. First: The Hispanic community within Lucent Technologies, factories to laboratories, occupational to boardroom, feels and knows that HISPA Lucent is indispensable to them. Second: The Hispanic communities in which we live and work recognize HISPA Lucent as an outstanding socially responsible contributor. Third: Hispanic issues and Hispanics are an integral part of Lucent Technologies' business strategy fabric.

Within the global Lucent family -- a closer look at HISPA and it's functions and operations -- is revealing as to how a Hispanic organization inside a vast corporation manages diversity issues.

It has been said that "we are a cultural bridge that is not only helping the corporation be aware of the needs of Hispanic employees, but also helping us better understand the corporation as well." Those apt words were spoken by Guido Minaya, former president of HISPA Lucent.

Just as minority scholarship programs promote diversity by opening the door to many bright, young minority students, so the types of programs to further this goal within large corporations is a gauge for the amount of commitment to diversity within those companies. Encouraging the inclusion and future advancement of Hispanics to high-ranking positions goes a long way toward proving that corporate America does care about the fastest-growing minority in the country. It is indeed a fact that inclusion does affect its bottom line.

Likewise, with the commitment to betterment exemplified by corporate entities such as Lucent Technologies, there will be changes in the way Hispanics perform in the workplace. Specifically-designed programs in corporate America which reach out to the Hispanic community and help to empower them to a more productive stance in terms of career leadership, will succeed in such corporations being ever-more successful in the rapidly changing global market.

As Hoverth Serrate commented: "It is a win-win situation. We help our company succeed while we succeed ourselves."

COPYRIGHT 1998 Hispanic Times Enterprises
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group