Covestro LLC receives US2020’s 2016 STEM Mentoring Award

Yesterday, August 11, US2020 honoured Covestro LLC with its 2016 STEM Mentoring Award for Excellence in Corporate Culture. The national award recognises Covestro’s companywide i3 STEM programme, which ignites young minds to become the innovators of tomorrow through hands-on science experiences and employee volunteerism. As an award recipient, Covestro will be participated in a White House STEM Mentoring Symposium.

The mission of US2020, launched at the 2013 White House Science Fair, is to change the trajectory of STEM education in America by dramatically scaling the number of STEM professionals mentoring and teaching students, especially those who have been traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.

More than 150 organisations participated in this year’s award series and Covestro was one of six companies selected for the honour.

"We were thrilled to see the variety and quality of organisations and companies that submitted applications to the 2016 STEM Mentoring Awards,” said Nick Hutchinson, Executive Director of US2020. "Quality, skills-based mentorship is uniquely positioned to address the barriers to STEM access and achievement and has been shown to provide academic and emotional benefits for students, particularly at-risk youth.”

Covestro, which operated as Bayer MaterialScience until September 2015, has a 60-year history of strengthening STEM education and fostering a diverse STEM workforce pipeline in the USA. The company is now pioneering a new approach to STEM mentoring and volunteering with skills-based volunteerism (SBV). The US2020 award acknowledges Covestro’s "exceptional work” in STEM mentoring.

"We are truly honoured to receive this award, which caps off a successful first year as a new company with a new name,” said Jerry MacCleary, President, Covestro LLC. "Our passion for STEM continues to be a fundamental part of our identity. This award not only highlights our commitment to advancing STEM education in communities nationwide but it also reflects the dedication of our employee volunteers, who serve as mentors and role models to inspire the next generation of innovators.”

Approximately 260 employee-volunteers at six USA Covestro sites work with more than 100 K-12 schools by participating in classroom visits, career fairs, science nights, mentoring, Girls in STEM programmes and other special events. They also have hosted or engaged in dozens of career fairs and conferences at universities. Through these activities, Covestro employees have impacted more than 40,000 students.

That number continues to grow as the company implements a new, more inclusive approach with SBV. This innovative concept allows virtually any employee to be a STEM volunteer, contributing their particular expertise to solve problems and build capacity for both STEM and non-STEM organisations.

"SBV enables all of our employees to serve STEM education organisations in new and vital ways,” said Rebecca Lucore, Covestro’s head of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, North and South America. "For example, Covestro teams have developed a sustainability plan for a Smithsonian Institution affiliate museum, prepared STEM education programming for a world-class botanic garden and solved a persistent accounting problem at a STEM education organisation that couldn’t afford paid consultants.”

In addition, Covestro is creating and expanding local and national STEM education partnerships with greenlight for girls (g4g), American Chemical Society’s Project SEED, and the Manufacturing Institute’s STEP Ahead programme, among others; sponsoring the Covestro Pittsburgh Regional Science & Engineering Fair; and supporting employees who volunteer with an official paid-time-off policy.