Social Justice - Pioneer Human Services

"The level of professionalism at Pioneer is equal to -- and in some cases, better than -- that of the companies I've worked at," Burns continues. "Pioneer has a sincere desire for employees to learn new things. And employees are determined to make the company as good as it can be -- in part, because of what the company has done for them."

By embracing its dual goals, Pioneer is creating a new agenda for the way that nonprofits fund their programs. It's a business agenda that eagerly embraces competition and free markets. The company is also forging a new social agenda: Every new account or contract that Pioneer wins gives the company an opportunity to showcase its employees in a new light -- not as past offenders but as a productive, and largely untapped, workforce.

To Build the Business, Build the People

It took Schwanda Taylor about two years to work up the courage to operate the water-jet cutting machine in Pioneer's cargo-liner factory. The machine -- a hulking, computerized monster that weighs more than 5 tons -- is used for the precision cutting of metals, plastics, and fiberglass. It slices through any material (including six inches of titanium) without leaving any burrs, or rough edges. It works like this: Once a cutting pattern is programmed into the machine, jets of water as narrow as human hairs apply 60,000 pounds of pressure per square inch to cut through whatever substance is being fed into the machine. The device could easily slice off a finger or two in the process.

"At first, I didn't think that I could run the water jet," says Taylor, a soft-spoken woman who, at 34, could pass for a teenager. "But one day, I opened my eyes and thought, 'I've got to stop being scared. I've got to rise above my fears: That's what this place is about.' "

Taylor has conquered many fears since coming to Pioneer. She joined the company through a prerelease program at Washington Corrections Center for Women, at Gig Harbor, where she was serving a five-year sentence on drug-related charges. The pre-release program is one of Pioneer's most successful initiatives. Over a six-year period, it has cut the recidivism rate in half (it's now down to 11% for the women enrolled) . And of the 50 women who were released from prison over a two-year period, 100% are still employed. For six months, Taylor took a bus to the factory each morning and returned to the prison each night. Her earnings, after housing payments to the state, were set aside for her in a savings account.

Once released, she decided to continue with Pioneer by taking courses -- on company time -- that Pioneer offered. She completed the training and participated in one of the quarterly graduation ceremonies that have become legendary at Pioneer. During those events, the company shuts down the factory floor to honor employees' myriad achievements, from the completion of training programs to workplace promotions.

"It was awesome," Taylor says with a wide, genuine smile. "I still get tears in my eyes when I think about that day. I passed every single class on time, and I didn't have to go back and retake a single test. Before every test, I would go into the bathroom and pray. I'd say, 'Lord, you know that I've worked very hard for this. Please let me pass this test.' " Having mastered the water-jet cutter, Taylor now trains other workers on the proper way to use it and other machines as well. The skill has become one more toehold that keeps her from slipping back into her past life.

So that's what Pioneer did for Taylor, but what does a worker like Taylor contribute to Pioneer? For most of last year, she was part of a team that completely restructured Pioneer's cargo-liner factory. The processes, the floor layout, the documentation, the quality inspection -- all of those things were reinvented by the workers themselves. "We could not have done it without them," says Dave Meisinger, 48, former vice president for manufacturing operations at Pioneer. A veteran of the electronics-manufacturing industry,

Meisinger has supervised many conversions to team-based production systems, which rely on suggestions from frontline workers to make operations more efficient and to raise output quality. He says that despite some of Pioneer's unique challenges, the company's successful conversion measures up to other efforts that he's supervised in the private sector.

"A lot of people who work here don't have the education or the experience that people at for-profits do," says Meisinger. "But the creativity level here is higher than that of any similar project team that I've worked with. People have come up with solutions to problems that are more advanced than those you might have gotten from for-profit employees. I think that is partly because the employees here truly love having the chance to think freely and to have their input matter. Instead of feeling like a number, they feel like part of a team."