Company Description: Since 1883, PPG Industries, Inc. has been dedicated to providing innovative materials for manufacturing, construction, automotive, chemical processing and numerous other global industries.
Education: B.A., Case Western Reserve University
J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Department Size: 36
Immediate Prior Position: Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, TRW Inc.
1. How does participation in community activities help you in your career?
First, the company gets another avenue through which it can review and evaluate you. They have an opportunity to see that your leadership skills are not limited to the law. Second, your visibility rises in the company, especially if your company supports this kind of activity and views it as important.
2. How would you describe a defining moment pivotal to your success?
My successful completion of major acquisitions earlier in my career was a defining moment for me. My leadership of that process and its successful completion gave me added recognition and opened up new opportunities for me.
3. What is the best career advice that you have ever received?
Don’t shy away from opportunities that present themselves. When new opportunities are available, you will probably have doubts about whether you have the skills, or if you can make the necessary sacrifices. But opportunities open doors and they help build careers. We often spend an inordinate amount of time trying to calibrate the risk of undertaking an assignment, but we rarely spend an equal amount of time calibrating the risk of not moving forward. We should ask ourselves, for example, what are the implications when someone else accepts this new assignment—will that assignment lead to a promotion and could that person one day become your boss.
This advice is especially important for minorities because in reality we have to go to greater lengths to prove ourselves. Managers offering opportunities to minorities may feel that they are taking a greater risk. They could be subjected to a higher degree of criticism if a minority employee doesn’t do the job well. Or if the employee turns down the opportunity, the manager, because of the perceived risk, may be reluctant to offer that employee another challenging assignment.
MCCA congratulates James Diggs upon his recent election to the Board of Directors of Allegheny Technologies Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA.
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From the December 2001 issue of Diversity & The Bar®