Malaria’s swat-meister
Starting at the bottom and cleaning up Derek came home one night to two inches of water from a burst pipe. The company he called at midnight to mop up the sodden mess was ServiceMaster, and he was pleased. When he checked their mission statement, he was intrigued. It said, “to honor God in all we do, to help people develop, to pursue excellence, and to grow profitably.” ServiceMaster cleans up — both literally and monetarily. “We have made a great business out of mundane tasks and services,” says the company’s former CEO, William Pollard, in his book Serving Two Masters? Reflections on God and Profit. “We do things like cleaning floors, carpets, and commodes; and killing weeds and bugs, things people don’t usually enjoy or want to do themselves.” How do they develop people in a business of ground-floor tasks? By elevating lowly jobs to the level of calling. Many of their employees have begun at the bottom (cleaning toilets) and have gone on to own their own franchise. “No matter how mundane the task, a person can achieve dignity and self-worth if the job is done well and if there is recognition for what has been accomplished,” says Pollard. Every ServiceMaster executive, no matter how high up the corporate ladder, is required to spend at least one day a year performing front-line service work with mop and bucket. Pollard says, “Our work should be an investment in a greater cause — the cause of developing people. This is the grand experiment of ServiceMaster. As a firm, we seek not only to excel in serving our customers and growing our profits, but also to be a moral community for the development of the human soul.” This means, among other things, helping people to understand themselves and their strengths, as well as their weaknesses and what is beyond their capabilities. In the end, the goal is “a community that works at shaping character and providing an environment where people can grow and develop into all that God wants them to be.” The Marketplace May June 2010
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On a desk in an office at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) there’s a sign that says, “If only Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes.” The clear religious reference may seem out of place in a secular agency, but it’s righton for the man who sits behind that desk. Tim Ziemer, a former navy pilot and church executive, knows malaria well. Too well. He caught the sickness as a child when his parents were missionaries in Asia. He’ll never forget the blinding fever, the burning lips, the deathly shakes. Today he is America’s malaria czar, head of the President’s Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion program started under George W. Bush and continued by Barack Obama. (Being a Bush appointee reappointed by President Obama makes him a bit of a rarity in Washington.) He came to the post following a stint as executive director of World Relief, an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. The program he heads aims to halve malaria deaths in Africa by next year, using preventions such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Ziemer believes the target will be met, and hopes to have the program extended. In an interview with World magazine, Ziemer commented on the role of mixing faith and work in the high reaches of government. “Those of us who are working in the secular community, when it comes to administering programs we have to be neutral, open, and objective,” he said. “The faithbased NGOs must not abandon that spiritual component to what they do. Their big challenge is to make sure the world doesn’t see their engagement as a means to an end. They don’t exist to proselytize, they exist to show the whole reason for their faith — that is to reach out, just like Christ did, to love the poor and suffering, and be Christ to them in body, soul, and mind.”
