Charles Richman, President of SOC Enterprises, visited the Committee during its March meeting. SOC, located in Arlington, VA, employs nearly 300 people with disabilities each year while providing a variety of labor-intensive administrative services including printing, mailroom operations, fulfillment, photocopying, print production and bindery to Federal agencies and commercial businesses. Some of SOC's clients include the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Drug Agency, the Patent and Trademark Office, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Mr. Richman discussed the efforts SOC has made to ensure the safety of its employees after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and precautions taken to protect workers on Federal mailroom contracts in the D.C.-metropolitan area in light of anthrax concerns. In October, 2001, SOC led a meeting on disaster preparedness with other local agencies and NISH representatives to share their experiences. This resulted in a joint task force that compiled a list of common experiences and challenges with such things as transportation, communication, evacuation procedures and emergency planning; the main lesson that SOC and the other nonprofits learned is to expand notions of work safety issues regarding mailrooms to include bio-terrorism and other possible hazards.

Mr. Richman also explained how SOC was adapting balanced scorecards, one of the most highly-touted management tools of the past decade, for use in the nonprofit sector. Balanced scorecards help determine whether or not an organization is meeting its objectives by establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between day-to-day business processes (e.g., quality control, training, order fulfillment, customer service) and strategic goals. The balanced scorecard developed by SOC over the past year allows SOC to determine and track the strategies that will help it reach its primary objective of providing people with disabilities and their families with "self-improvement, advancement, acceptance, and monetary reward in a safe environment" via training, employment, and career-development opportunities.

For more information about SOC Enterprises' services, visit www.socatwork.org or call (703) 920-9400. For more information about Individual Placement Services, call (703) 521-4441.