Audio Interview, Emily Jones, April 17, 2012

  • EVELYN BAILEY: So Emily, were you born in Rochester?
  • EMILY JONES: No, I was born in Canton, New York.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And when did you come to Rochester?
  • EMILY JONES: When I was twenty-eight.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Were you out?
  • EMILY JONES: No.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Were you well, why did you come to Rochester?
  • EMILY JONES: I came to Rochester because my husband had gotten
  • a PhD graduate scholarship at the U of R
  • in chemical engineering.
  • And I was going to attend the U of R as well
  • and get my PhD in chemistry.
  • But I didn't like the professors so much.
  • And so I applied for a job, a couple of jobs.
  • And I interviewed at Kodak.
  • And I thought it was really fascinating.
  • So I chose to go to Kodak with my master's degree
  • and not get a PhD.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And was your master's degree
  • in science or chemistry?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, my master's degree is in chemistry.
  • I had the first master's degree from Plattsburgh State
  • in chemistry.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK, so you were a chemist?
  • EMILY JONES: Right.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And when you went to work at Kodak,
  • what was your position?
  • Were you
  • EMILY JONES: I started in the nuclear magnetic resonance
  • laboratory as an analytical chemist.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.
  • That's high powered (laughs)
  • EMILY JONES: Well, my master's degree
  • was in electron paramagnetics resonance imaging.
  • And I actually had to build a multifrequency spectrometer
  • for my thesis, which was a PhD thesis, by the way.
  • But since I was the first master's degree, you know.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: (laughs) OK, how did you
  • get from there to Lambda Kodak? (laughs)
  • There In three sentences or less, no I mean, you
  • EMILY JONES: Well, I was married and I had a son.
  • When we came to Rochester, he was three.
  • And you know, my famous story is the one
  • where United Way was extraordinarily strong
  • at Kodak.
  • Because George Eastman founded the Community Chest,
  • which became the United Way.
  • So it was expected that you donated
  • a particular portion of your salary to the United Way.
  • And they gave you suggested guidelines.
  • And so I was reading the United guidelines
  • and saw how much I was supposed to give.
  • And then, I looked at all the agencies.
  • And I noticed that the Gay Alliance
  • was one of those agencies.
  • And I went up and talked to my boss.
  • And I said, if I give money, does my money
  • go to the Gay Alliance?
  • And he said, no, it just goes to the United Way.
  • The way money goes to the Gay Alliance
  • is if you select it as a specific receiver
  • of your money.
  • I say, good, because I don't want to give them any money.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: You don't want to give the Gay
  • Alliance any money?
  • OK.
  • EMILY JONES: That's my famous story.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So how did you get
  • from not wanting to give the Alliance any money to Lamda
  • Kodak?
  • EMILY JONES: Well, so that was in 1975.
  • And (pause) long story, my marriage wasn't the best.
  • And I kept struggling with why.
  • I didn't know.
  • And then (pause) I discovered, when my son was thirteen
  • that I was attracted to women.
  • And that was very scary.
  • Because (pause) I was Catholic.
  • And you were married.
  • And you were married forever.
  • And I was always very proud of the fact
  • that our marriage was actually working,
  • when so many of our friends' marriages
  • were ending in divorce.
  • And the whole thing really was very difficult
  • for me to understand.
  • So of course, you have to go to therapy.
  • And the marriage was really bad at that point.
  • And so one was a trigger to go to therapy.
  • And the other was a trigger to go to therapy.
  • And then, it just sort of evolved.
  • And it took me about three years to convince myself
  • that I really wanted to end the marriage.
  • Because it wasn't good for me.
  • And it wasn't good for my son.
  • That was a really difficult journey for me.
  • Because I didn't have the support of my mother.
  • She just kept telling me that I had to work harder at it.
  • My father, on the other hand, was
  • very supportive of my needing to move forward.
  • So then, I finally ended the marriage.
  • And then, I finally came out to myself.
  • And then, I met a woman in Boston,
  • who used to be a good friend of mine in high school.
  • And then, we had a relationship, long distance, for about four
  • and a half years.
  • And during that time, because she was such a clear voice
  • for gay rights, human rights, and women's rights,
  • I got crystallized about what it meant
  • to be discriminated against, as a woman,
  • and as a person who was gay.
  • And it was also right at the crescendo of the horrific AIDS
  • crisis.
  • And we were seeing the quilts.
  • And we walked through the quilts on the Washington Mall.
  • And all of this was incredibly overwhelming,
  • for someone who had lived a very sheltered life in upstate New
  • York, in a town of 20,000 people that didn't even
  • have any black people.
  • The first person I met, who was a person of color,
  • was when I was in college.
  • And we had two Jewish people in my high school.
  • That was it.
  • I mean, you're talking about a Catholic town,
  • very white, and very, very, very,
  • clearly if you want to call it family values.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
  • (music playing)
  • Let me stop you and get some dates.
  • When did you graduate from college?
  • EMILY JONES: 1972.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So actually, Stonewall had already happened.
  • EMILY JONES: Right.
  • But I didn't even know what Stonewall was.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And when did you come to Rochester?
  • EMILY JONES: '75.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And when did you start at Eastman Kodak?
  • EMILY JONES: '75.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And then, when did
  • you have this awakening, this
  • EMILY JONES: 1984.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And so you were at Kodak.
  • You had gotten divorced.
  • EMILY JONES: Not yet, not in 1984.
  • I didn't get divorced until 1988.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
  • But in '84, you were intensely aware of
  • EMILY JONES: No, just mildly aware.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
  • So when did this (pause) did you meet the woman in Boston
  • before or after you got divorced?
  • EMILY JONES: Before.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And so it was during those two or three
  • years that your understanding of oppression,
  • and understanding of liberation, and coming
  • to know what it was to be a woman in 1984,
  • '85, '86, and a gay woman that catapulted you
  • into becoming an activist?
  • EMILY JONES: I would never call myself an activist.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Well, you are, so (both laugh)
  • EMILY JONES: No, I actually wouldn't.
  • What happened, there's several things.
  • If you think about it, I was a scientist without a PhD.
  • I was a woman in a predominantly male field.
  • I was the only woman leader in my division.
  • At that time, I had moved very quickly
  • to becoming the assistant to the director
  • in that division, which was never ever held by a woman.
  • I was the only woman on the leadership team.
  • And then, I find out I'm gay so we've
  • got three things going here and soon to become a single mom.
  • So what I tried always to do was to learn and understand
  • what you needed to do to be successful.
  • What did we need to do?
  • So anyway, so I went off to the Gay Games in 1990.
  • I think that's when it was.
  • Or was it
  • EVELYN BAILEY: There were Gay Games in 1990.
  • EMILY JONES: And I met a few people there.
  • And this one guy's name, which I'm still trying to find he
  • was a minister, who had been kicked out of his faith.
  • And he was working at Kodak.
  • And he knew David Kozel and Gary Gray,
  • I believe, and told me there was a group downtown at Kodak.
  • And then, there was himself and me in Kodak Park.
  • And we needed somehow to come together
  • to create some kind of an entity to talk to one another
  • at Kodak.
  • At the same time, Joe Moliere David Kozel
  • had done a talk in California at a (pause)
  • human resources conference on what
  • it was like to be gay in the workforce,
  • to a closed audience.
  • It was very well articulated and crafted.
  • And so that was happening.
  • And we were having these conversations
  • about the corporate closet in Kodak Park.
  • And then, there was this Vice President, which
  • I can't remember her name, but I'll
  • get because David will probably remember who actually brought
  • the two groups together and said, you guys need to talk.
  • At the same time, we were recognizing
  • that, in other companies, there were these things called
  • Employee Resource Groups.
  • And we noticed that, when we were at the Gay Games
  • and there was also a march on Washington
  • following that we noticed they were marching.
  • And we said, why can't we form an Employee Resource
  • Group at Kodak to educate Kodak about what it's like to be
  • gay in the workplace?
  • What is it like?
  • What does it feel like?
  • What does that look like?
  • What is it?
  • What is it like for us to come to work every day?
  • And there was a very famous movie
  • called Friday Morning Pronouns.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Friday Morning
  • EMILY JONES: Pronouns, (pause) which I've never seen,
  • but I've heard about.
  • And
  • EVELYN BAILEY: It's a movie?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah.
  • And that movie is how one transforms from the weekend
  • to work, where all of the pronouns are nondescript.
  • They're they, we, you, them.
  • But there's nothing about he or she.
  • And we decided to create this Employee Resource Group,
  • as two others had formed at Kodak.
  • The very first was for people of color, which was North Star.
  • And the second was the Women's Forum.
  • So we were the third.
  • And
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Do we have a year?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, we do somewhere.
  • And K. Whitmore approved it, right before he retired.
  • Now, that's significant too.
  • Because he was a Mormon.
  • But he understood, at some level,
  • why it was so important to educate Kodak's leadership
  • about all of their employees and what
  • they needed to be successful in the workplace.
  • So then, we got the approval.
  • And, the we had these bulletin boards,
  • electronic bulletin boards where employees
  • could write to get answers.
  • And each one of the Resource Groups had one.
  • Ours went live.
  • It was up not even a day and was taken down,
  • because of the horrific response that the ERG got.
  • I mean, it was really people said they
  • were going to kill some people.
  • They took it down.
  • There was a bit of stupidity here.
  • All the people who wrote, they had
  • their names attached to them.
  • They were each met with and talked to.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: By who?
  • EMILY JONES: By the Vice President of HR staff at Kodak.
  • And they were told that you can have whatever belief you want.
  • But everyone at Kodak deserves to be treated the same
  • and with the same respect when they come to work.
  • So then, the bulletin board went back up again.
  • And that all disappeared.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK, go back to when the vice president brought
  • the two groups together.
  • EMILY JONES: All she did was say, there's a group downtown.
  • And you guys ought to meet.
  • And we just that's all she did.
  • She didn't actually bring us physically together.
  • She just made us aware that we existed to create one group.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: And so you took it upon the people
  • in these groups took it upon themselves
  • to come together and meet?
  • EMILY JONES: Mm-hm.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: What was that like?
  • What was it like for you to recognize
  • that there were other people at Kodak
  • who were gay, who were looking to form support,
  • to find support?
  • EMILY JONES: Well, what was it like?
  • It was like a well, for me, it was just
  • like meeting other people who had
  • the same sense of want of safety and the ability
  • to be themselves at work.
  • I mean
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Did you know other people
  • who were gay in the community, in Rochester?
  • Or were you closeted?
  • EMILY JONES: Not many.
  • Because the person I sort of really
  • came out with lived in Boston.
  • So I mean, a few, but not many.
  • And there wasn't really a way to find out easily.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So information even,
  • and we're talking 1987 to '88.
  • EMILY JONES: It would be '88 now.
  • No, it would be 1990.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: 1990.
  • Information about gay resources, or where
  • EMILY JONES: Oh yeah, that was all in these little bookstores.
  • There was a bookstore on Monroe.
  • It had a funny name.
  • It was a woman's bookstore.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Silkwood.
  • EMILY JONES: Silkwood.
  • No, that wasn't was that Silkwood?
  • What was the one where Edibles is?
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, that wasn't Silkwood.
  • EMILY JONES: There were two.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Lori Matoka and
  • EMILY JONES: There were two.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, Wild Seeds.
  • EMILY JONES: Wild Seeds.
  • Those two bookstores became sort of my font of knowledge.
  • So I just did a lot of reading.
  • I never went to a library.
  • I just went to those bookstores, and got lots of books,
  • and read, most of which are sitting in this library
  • here now.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Were computers I mean,
  • the computer age had come, (laughs) obviously,
  • by 1990, right?
  • EMILY JONES: Right.
  • Yeah, (pause) right, and the first movie
  • came up during that of time as well.
  • What was that called?
  • What was that woman's movie?
  • Something hearts.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, hearts.
  • EMILY JONES: Dear hearts, I don't know, something hearts.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: It's probably behind you somewhere.
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, and so I don't
  • think we had the search capability, though,
  • on the computer.
  • No, we didn't have the search ability
  • that we have now, to go to and stuff.
  • It was still books.
  • Anyway, so yeah, but what we did, I thought.
  • We had a couple of things we did.
  • It was we met over the winter.
  • And we put together a business plan,
  • an actual corporate business plan
  • of why we were necessary to the corporation.
  • And actually, we talked about before this ever became
  • sort of this mainstream thing about recruitment,
  • and retention now, and productivity we actually
  • wrote the business plan around that.
  • And we also wrote about the fact that we did a marketing plan
  • that we knew where the company could market directly
  • to this demographic.
  • And we could open up those doors.
  • And we actually started very, very early conversations
  • with Witeck-Combs Communications in Washington DC.
  • And they worked with one of our famous laboratories
  • on the west coast to really start marketing
  • to the gay community in the San Francisco Bay Area (pause).
  • So we wrote a business plan.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: You became indispensable.
  • EMILY JONES: And then, because George Fisher was the CEO,
  • all the rest of these ERGs would have these management events,
  • you know?
  • Where the different strata of leadership
  • would come and hear about this particular demographic
  • in the company.
  • And so we presented the first one in 1990 something or other,
  • five, I think.
  • I don't know.
  • I can find that out, too.
  • But It was held out at the Burgundy Basin Inn.
  • And you could have heard a pin drop in that.
  • There was so much electricity in that room.
  • If you'd thrown a match in it, it would have all burned up.
  • The leaders were afraid to be there.
  • The gay people were afraid to be there.
  • And we did three skits on what it
  • was like to be a gay person in the workplace, different things
  • with talking heads behind them.
  • It was so powerful that the VP, Mike Morley,
  • of human resources, went off and put domestic partnership
  • benefits in place in the following year.
  • People got it.
  • And the other thing is, we did that skit with members
  • of all of the other networks, the African American network,
  • the woman's network, and then the Hispanic network
  • had been formed.
  • And so they all took parts in those skits.
  • So we had as many straight allies in those skits
  • as gay people.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Wow that's incredible.
  • EMILY JONES: And so the speaker at that first management event
  • was Elizabeth Birch, on her way to HRC
  • to become the president and an executive director.
  • And she's the person who actually shifted HRC
  • to a business focus, with the work place
  • project and the whole CEI.
  • She knew that, if you could shift business,
  • you can shift the United States.
  • Because once business gets it, once business advertises
  • to any demographic, the most important thing
  • is that they become legitimate in the eyes of the population.
  • They are a legitimate demographic.
  • You can no longer ignore them.
  • And you can no longer discriminate them
  • or displace them.
  • They are a reality, when business recognizes.
  • Now, so Elizabeth sat at the table
  • and tested her whole speech with George Fisher,
  • before she got up and gave it.
  • We told her she was not to talk about domestic partnership
  • benefits.
  • She was to talk about what her story was,
  • when she was Chief Legal Counsel at Apple,
  • to get Apple to transform and to embrace the gay community.
  • And before she left, she got domestic partnership benefits
  • in place.
  • But she was not to, you know, say to the CEO,
  • we want this for Kodak.
  • Because we weren't asking for anything.
  • What we went there with was, again as I was saying,
  • education and why this is good for business.
  • There are really two reasons.
  • And we wanted to keep that always.
  • This wasn't about a personal, I'm being hurt,
  • I'm being discriminated against, I'm being it wasn't about that.
  • It was about why it would make a difference
  • if I could come to work completely and fully as myself.
  • Why it would a difference to the bottom line of this company.
  • And so she did.
  • And she got up there.
  • And she said, George Fisher, there all these companies
  • that are your peers.
  • And they have domestic partnership benefits.
  • And you should put them in place.
  • And I just fell on the floor. (EVELYN BAILEY laughs)
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Did he fall on the floor?
  • EMILY JONES: No, he just looked at her.
  • Now, you have some great footage,
  • as I told you on those DVDs, of him talking to this audience.
  • And he read a poem.
  • And he cried during that.
  • You can feel it, you know, the emotion in his voice.
  • Because he really believed.
  • He understood the discrimination.
  • And he believed that this community really
  • needed to be affirmed.
  • Now, before we did this management event,
  • David Kozel and myself had to go to every one of his vice
  • presidents and personally invite them and tell them what we
  • were going to do at the event.
  • That was not easy.
  • Some of the secretaries said, you're who?
  • And you're doing what?
  • And no, there isn't such a thing at Eastman Kodak Company.
  • And I had to suck it up and say, well, George Fisher
  • asked me to call and set this up.
  • Would you please call his secretary,
  • and please clear this up?
  • And I'd get a call back in a couple of days and say,
  • you are correct.
  • Oh, in this haughty tone of voice, you are correct.
  • You will be meeting with someone so and so at x time.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: But he knew what he was doing.
  • EMILY JONES: Of course, he was.
  • He was getting us to engage them.
  • He wasn't telling them to do it.
  • He said, the only way they'll come is if you invite them.
  • And you've got to get them there.
  • So do whatever you need to do to get them there.
  • I'll get you the opening.
  • But you've got to do the work.
  • He didn't say that verbatim.
  • But you know, I made that up.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: No, that was the message.
  • EMILY JONES: One of the vice presidents
  • said there were no gay people in Pittsburgh Well,
  • we kind of said, well, maybe.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: (laughs) Oh my God.
  • So how scared were you through all of this?
  • EMILY JONES: I didn't eat my dinner, I remember that.
  • I was more afraid of I remember, I
  • went to pick up Elizabeth Birch.
  • And I was sitting in her anteroom at the Strathallan
  • while she was getting dressed.
  • She's babbling away, as she does.
  • You know, she's just a high energy woman.
  • And I was doing yoga breathing.
  • Because I thought I was going to either pass out,
  • throw up, or do something.
  • And then, we got to the event.
  • And you know, you made sure all the pieces of the puzzle
  • were in place, and the name tags, and this, all that crap
  • that you have to do.
  • And oh, by the way, when you do something
  • for that level of management, it has
  • to start on time and end on time precisely, precisely.
  • And so we had done that over, and over, and over again.
  • But it was amazing.
  • And from then on, it took on a life of its own,
  • as being the event, the management
  • event to attend every year.
  • At the height of the event, when we
  • had the Glisten Kids come in and talk
  • about what it was like to be gay in high school,
  • we had six-hundred people attend, six-hundred leaders
  • attend that event.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So let me take you back to
  • before that first event.
  • And you're meeting with all of these vice presidents.
  • How concerned were you for your own job?
  • EMILY JONES: I wasn't.
  • I've never had that.
  • I've never had that in anything I've ever done.
  • I don't think about it.
  • I think about it later.
  • But I do not think about it.
  • I am driven from a place that's inside of me that I
  • don't know where it came from.
  • My father used to say he couldn't figure out
  • why I was trying to take care of the world.
  • But that was my need in life.
  • And he said, you just go do stuff and just do it.
  • I've never been afraid.
  • It's more of a it becomes (pause) like a puzzle.
  • How can I create an opening for understanding?
  • What can I say?
  • Who can I bring into the room?
  • And I don't know where it comes from.
  • But it's just inside of me.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Have you ever felt
  • threatened because you are gay?
  • EMILY JONES: Never.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: When you were working
  • through this process of this first education event,
  • how did you deal with the negativity or the secretary who
  • said to you, your group doesn't exist, and you said,
  • call George Fisher?
  • EMILY JONES: No, no his secretary.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: How did you deal with that obvious negation
  • of not only Lambda Kodak were you called Lambda Kodak then?
  • EMILY JONES: Uh-uh, Lambda at Kodak.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Lambda at Kodak.
  • EMILY JONES: Never Lambda Kodak, Lambda at Kodak.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So that was your name then?
  • EMILY JONES: Mm-hm.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: How did you respond to all of that?
  • EMILY JONES: It's just kind of like I've always
  • been the kind of kid that, if you tell me I can do something,
  • I'll try so much harder.
  • And I will show you that it can be done.
  • It's something inside of me.
  • It's like my boss when I came to Kodak said, you have a child.
  • You're a woman.
  • You're never going to make it here.
  • Because you don't have enough time to spend on the job.
  • I was his boss in five years (pause).
  • Don't tell me I can't do something.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: That's very much an intellectual process.
  • EMILY JONES: That's right.
  • And that's where I go under stress.
  • I go way out of the feeling zone and right into the head zone.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: But your Employee Resource Group, at the time,
  • had how many members, approximately?
  • EMILY JONES: twelve.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Were they all in the same ballpark?
  • EMILY JONES: No, no, a lot of them
  • wanted domestic partnership benefits.
  • They also wanted a social group.
  • And we very clearly said, no, this is part of the business.
  • We are here to improve the business.
  • That's why the Employee Resource Groups were formed.
  • We cannot represent any group.
  • We can't be like a union.
  • We are individuals always.
  • All we can do is educate management
  • about this demographic, so that we
  • can improve the business of Eastman Kodak Company.
  • That was clear.
  • We just stayed on that game.
  • And people who wanted to have bowling leagues
  • and, you know, all that stuff, go do it.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: But within these twelve people,
  • was there anyone who wanted to say,
  • (pause) go and tell whoever that they were hurting you,
  • that they were not being fair, that they were not
  • being open to people who were gay, and that damn it all?
  • EMILY JONES: But that's how you did.
  • What you did was you started to educate people
  • about what it was like to be gay in the workplace.
  • What was the corporate closet like for you?
  • That's what we did with those skits.
  • We showed people.
  • And then, we created the opening to have
  • what we called these Can We Talks with small leadership
  • groups, maybe twenty leaders at a time.
  • And we would do this Can We Talk,
  • where we would talk about what it
  • was like to be gay in the workforce.
  • We'd just have a conversation led by a facilitator.
  • And people would sit around us.
  • And they were not allowed to interrupt us.
  • They were allowed to listen.
  • People would on the outside, those leaders, some of them
  • would break down in tears.
  • They couldn't believe that people were treated
  • like this in the workforce.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So how were people
  • treated in the workforce?
  • EMILY JONES: The same as they were treated anywhere else.
  • They were jokes.
  • They were left out.
  • They were not included.
  • They were made fun of, all of the same things that, you know,
  • happen.
  • I don't know what all the stories were.
  • Because I never heard all the stories.
  • But I can tell you those that were in manufacturing,
  • especially in the dark rooms, had
  • a lot of issues with being gay, didn't want to be there,
  • always were fearing for something that may occur.
  • Things did occur.
  • I know that.
  • But I don't know exactly what.
  • But I know we had people transition at Kodak
  • very early on.
  • So people with this, then we set up,
  • as a result of that first management, a safe place.
  • Or maybe it was the second one, I don't know, safe place zones.
  • So we had magnets outside of offices.
  • And then, people, if they had concerns,
  • if something was happening to them they were worried about,
  • they could go talk to those leaders.
  • Those leaders would connect them with the right HR people,
  • so that they could get their situations handled or whatever.
  • I'm sure there are hundreds of people
  • that never told their story.
  • I'm sure there are hundreds of people that never came out,
  • especially the women in the trades.
  • The women in the trades never came out.
  • That was a place that was really tough to work.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: What (pause) changed?
  • Kay Whitmore was a Mormon.
  • And he allowed the group to begin.
  • George Fisher encouraged you to bring people on board
  • at the highest level of the organization
  • to create an environment which would allow your group
  • to do the education necessary (pause).
  • What caused them really to buy in to what you wanted to do?
  • EMILY JONES: People telling their stories.
  • They would move management.
  • Management couldn't believe some of the stories they heard.
  • And they felt nobody should be treated that way.
  • And the passion that the group had for
  • creating an environment where everyone could
  • be treated as a whole person, they
  • could hear it in the stories.
  • We had a meeting at one of the senior leader's homes
  • with the entire leadership team under it was after Fisher,
  • I think.
  • But the CEO and president was there and all
  • of his key leaders.
  • They invited us to come talk.
  • They wanted to know how we did it.
  • How did we create such awareness and such open conversation
  • with our peers, with our leaders, and with them?
  • They wanted to know how we did it.
  • So that it's so funny we could help other Resource Groups
  • do it.
  • It was fascinating.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So tell me why Eastman Kodak
  • corporate leadership would be in the least
  • bit interested in helping you or other groups create a dialogue?
  • EMILY JONES: Oh, because of the productivity.
  • You needed productivity.
  • You were fighting the Japanese.
  • You had to create quality and productivity.
  • And the only way you were going to do it
  • is have everybody on the team at the same time.
  • Nobody could be sitting in the stands watching the game.
  • Everybody had to be playing, not at 100 percent,
  • but at 110 percent.
  • So you had to know everybody on the team.
  • And everybody on the team had to be
  • able to contribute fully and not be afraid, not
  • be afraid to take an assignment, not
  • be afraid to attend a particular dinner, and so on, and so
  • forth.
  • You had to have everybody in the game.
  • You wanted everybody's knowledge,
  • everybody's full participation.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So really, the hearts and minds
  • of the leadership were not changed
  • by (pause) hearing the stories, they
  • were changed by the necessity of keeping Kodak moving
  • in the right direction and making the profit that it
  • needed to make?
  • EMILY JONES: No, I disagree completely.
  • It's because their hearts and minds were shifted.
  • They got their head around what they
  • needed to do to support their people,
  • so they could be profitable.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK, I wanted to push that.
  • Because the bottom line is, for most businesses,
  • the ultimate reason why you make change
  • you don't make change necessarily to help.
  • You make change because, without doing that, you're not
  • going to survive.
  • You're not going to grow.
  • You're not going to be bigger and better
  • EMILY JONES: Well, I think here's the issue.
  • The issue was all of corporate America was changing,
  • from a very predominantly white male led society
  • to one that was one that had many, many
  • different ethnic demographics.
  • It now had more women than it had ever seen before.
  • And they had no experience of that, none whatsoever.
  • All these companies had no experience
  • of what it was like to work shoulder
  • to shoulder with a woman in the laboratory,
  • or in a business mode.
  • They had even less working with a Jewish man
  • or an African American man.
  • And now, let's put in the Asians and the gay people.
  • They were all there.
  • They didn't know how to talk even.
  • They wanted to learn.
  • Because they knew, if they didn't know how to engage,
  • create relationships with all of their people,
  • they could never shift to create the change they wanted.
  • They may see the change.
  • But they can't move the ship if they
  • don't know how to engage with, you know, the people
  • sitting there with the oars at the bottom.
  • They had to learn.
  • It's like Excellus created a Gay and Lesbian Employee Resource
  • Group without gay and lesbians asking for it.
  • Because they couldn't get to these people
  • any other way to find out what they needed in their workforce.
  • And they wanted their workforce to be the most productive.
  • There's another thing.
  • If you look in the financial community,
  • it's a very, very highly competitive community
  • for personnel.
  • And there are a lot of people who are gay and lesbian
  • in the financial community.
  • They took this on with a vengeance,
  • to make sure that they were open, inclusive companies.
  • They moved so fast in the late '90s,
  • early 2000, to make sure that people weren't stealing them
  • away, and that people were coming out of,
  • you know colleges would start seeing the ratings.
  • They wanted to be competitive.
  • In fact, you have the first career fair
  • for master's students called the Gay MBA.
  • And that's been going since the '90s.
  • It's that population.
  • And they want the best talent.
  • They want to retain the best talent.
  • But again, you can't engage unless you know it,
  • unless you can speak the language,
  • unless you can affirm the people and not push them off
  • by saying something what you think is totally harmless
  • and it becomes totally offensive.
  • So it's like learning a whole set of languages.
  • So that's what the whole diversity thing was about.
  • Most people thought it was about numbers.
  • It wasn't.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So after that first educational event,
  • in which you fell on the floor because Elizabeth told
  • George Fisher
  • EMILY JONES: To put domestic partnership benefits in place,
  • right.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: How did you feel?
  • EMILY JONES: Well.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Aside from relief that it was over.
  • EMILY JONES: Well, we knew we had a lot of work to do.
  • And I felt really proud of being associated
  • with the company and the people that
  • showed such incredible courage and passion to put this
  • together.
  • And it was remarkable (pause).
  • The assistant to George Fisher was in the closet, not out.
  • And she came out about two months later in an elevator
  • at Kodak Office, as a result of the event.
  • She knew she couldn't stay in the closet any longer.
  • Because there was this courageous group.
  • They know she's gay.
  • And he spoke to everybody in the company.
  • George Fisher thanked her and said, let's move on.
  • This is a good thing.
  • That was the only thing he said.
  • So we felt pretty proud.
  • And we also felt pretty lucky that we
  • had this incredible leadership team that really cared.
  • We'd get called down to Kodak Office.
  • Like on the domestic partnership,
  • we got called down to sit through a thought
  • process of whether we should make it just for same sex
  • or should we make it for same sex and different sex.
  • Because in the future, more and more people
  • may not want to marry.
  • So should we put it in place for all people?
  • That was like, well, I don't know.
  • But you know, we all kind of was,
  • like, we haven't thought about that problem.
  • But it makes more sense to make it inclusive than not.
  • So I think Kodak was the first to do that.
  • Kodak was the first to testify on the Employment
  • Nondiscrimination Act, first company to have a VP there.
  • We signed on the Tax Equity Benefits Act.
  • We were the first to sign on that.
  • We received every single award there was at Out
  • and Equal, every single one.
  • We had a 100% on the Human Rights Campaign, CEI,
  • since its inception.
  • So we were a pretty amazing entity,
  • in terms of transformational change across the United
  • States.
  • Disney was waiting for Kodak, to see what Kodak would do.
  • And then, Disney followed Kodak.
  • Because they were in the same business basically.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: What was the group's response
  • to the success of that first event, in terms of
  • did they think they had arrived and everything would be OK?
  • Or did they have a similar response as you
  • that you recognized there was a lot of work
  • to do, even though certainly the management and leadership
  • team was obviously supportive?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, it was probably the same
  • as it is always in a company, that senior leadership says
  • stuff.
  • But it's the middle leadership's behavior
  • that people pay attention to.
  • It either translates through or stops.
  • So there's a lot of skepticism as to
  • whether mid-level management would actually follow.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: But Lambda at Kodak (pause)
  • I want you to say this.
  • I don't want to say it.
  • Was the level of commitment any different after
  • that first event than before?
  • EMILY JONES: Level of commitment by whom?
  • EVELYN BAILEY: By the Employee Resource Group?
  • EMILY JONES: I don't think so.
  • It was the same people with the same passion.
  • And so we just started thinking about what we were
  • going to do for the next year.
  • This was successful.
  • Now what are we going to do?
  • And that was not trivial.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Did more people come into your group?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, well, there's an interesting question.
  • Because we had a distribution list.
  • But it was you couldn't see it.
  • So people could sign up.
  • Only a few people knew who the people were on that list.
  • Yeah, there were more people on the distribution list.
  • Were they visible?
  • Not so.
  • But more people were interested in finding out
  • what was going on.
  • Yeah, there were still I mean, it was so long ago.
  • There were still meetings, you know.
  • The meetings were held in a way that anybody could come.
  • And they were held in places where, you know,
  • people felt they weren't being watched.
  • Like, they would be held at Kodak Office,
  • as opposed to out in the park, so nobody could associate you
  • with blah, blah, blah, I guess.
  • That was important to a lot of people.
  • But you know, it's like any other group.
  • A lot of people are watching it.
  • But the people who really worked on it about the same 12 to 20
  • people every year, a few new ones, a few dropped off.
  • But we had an enormous amount of support,
  • more and more support by mid-level managers,
  • and more and more interest.
  • And we'd have meetings with the HR personnel
  • in different sections of the company.
  • And they were very, very hungry to learn, very hungry to learn.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: There are still, I
  • think I'm not sure really two different workforces at Kodak.
  • There were those who worked in manufacturing and those that
  • didn't.
  • Was there a difference in perception and in response
  • to what you were doing from those two entities?
  • EMILY JONES: Well, I would say manufacturing very rarely
  • got involved with any of the Employee Resource Groups,
  • no matter what they were.
  • Because their view was this is a bunch
  • of people who are trying to grow their career,
  • and suck up to management, and do the right thing,
  • and say the right thing.
  • And it wasn't about the people that were working on the lines
  • or doing stuff like that.
  • No matter how hard you tried to engage those populations
  • and you did.
  • You know, you'd have meetings with people on the third shift,
  • or just all kinds of stuff.
  • We had Can We Talks on the (unintelligible).
  • There's a natural skepticism in a company between manufacturing
  • and the people who are seen as the white collar workers.
  • It just exists everywhere.
  • And it's a different mindset.
  • It's people who come to work, do their job.
  • Their job has a real structure around it.
  • And then, they go home.
  • They're very proud of what they do.
  • They're incredibly talented.
  • Their craft is phenomenal.
  • They don't really care about changing the world.
  • They care about their world.
  • And they care about their world running well
  • when they're in it.
  • But the big picture, not so interested.
  • They want somebody to make sure they
  • have their benefits, their time off, their whatever,
  • their blah, blah, blah.
  • But it's not an interest to them.
  • It's not what brings them to work.
  • There's a different group of people
  • and it's not that big, by the way.
  • It's fairly small in the company who really cares about what's
  • happening in the workforce, how this workforce could be
  • different, how is this workforce could be more engaging, how
  • this workforce could share its innovations, how, you know,
  • it could take care of everyone.
  • And the manufacturing people don't very often
  • want to participate in that.
  • It's not important to them.
  • The passion is about their skill and their craft.
  • And boy, they're good at it.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Can you estimate how
  • visibility of gay and lesbian employees increased,
  • decreased remained the same, well,
  • from the beginning of your first educational event
  • to today or five years ago?
  • EMILY JONES: Oh yeah, it increased.
  • But I would say that, in that mid-level management level,
  • I don't think it really ever opened up (pause).
  • It opened up at the top.
  • It opened up, you know first and second levels.
  • People all throughout the company.
  • But that mid-level management still not so sure
  • this was a good thing to come out.
  • It's very different from IBM or Xerox.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: How so?
  • EMILY JONES: IBM and Xerox have an international network.
  • They actually come together once a year
  • as a gay workforce and talk about opportunities,
  • leadership, what they're doing.
  • IBM actually had a whole program where they actually
  • came together and figured out how
  • they could get more customers through their own networks.
  • But the leadership there was very male centric
  • in both of those companies.
  • And I think that has a lot to do with it.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Very male?
  • EMILY JONES: Male centric.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Huh (pause).
  • Why?
  • EMILY JONES: I don't know.
  • It happens differently in every company.
  • We always had more women involved than men.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So let me go back to when you first
  • came to Kodak and the first Employee
  • Resource Group that began, and the second, and the third.
  • Did openness and welcome of those groups
  • increase, surpass LGBT I mean, I don't know how many African
  • Americans, or Hispanics
  • EMILY JONES: I think that the focus
  • of the African American network was more on developing
  • your leadership skills.
  • That's what they worked on.
  • The women's group worked on developing networking
  • across the entire company, all over the world,
  • to develop visibility and potential assignments.
  • You know, I don't really know what
  • the Hispanic network worked on.
  • We just worked on education and acceptance,
  • affirmation, understanding.
  • I can tell you.
  • We had one VP of diversity, who said that the company
  • leadership should have our element of diversity
  • as part of its tracking mechanism
  • for putting LGBT people in high level leadership positions.
  • And he wanted to track that metric.
  • And we all kind of laughed and said, OK,
  • so I can identify all these people that
  • won't identify themselves.
  • So that was kind of fascinating.
  • But he really was clearly someone
  • who wanted to go after that.
  • So we had, like I said, the management event that was most
  • attended by anyone, always.
  • Because it's fascinating.
  • People wanted to learn about it.
  • People didn't know about it.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So how many years did you work for Kodak?
  • EMILY JONES: thirty.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So in those thirty years,
  • what would you identify as the moment you are most proud of?
  • EMILY JONES: Hm, I don't know.
  • There he is!
  • KEVIN: Hello.
  • EMILY JONES: Hey Kevin.
  • The most proud of, wow (pause).
  • I guess, the day I talked to Walter Fallon
  • into spending a half a million on a nuclear magnetic resonance
  • spectrometer.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Oh (laughs), all right,
  • let me ask the question a different way.
  • KEVIN: That was crucial for the LGBT movement, I'm sure.
  • EMILY JONES: Well actually, if you want his particular remark,
  • our credibility to senior management
  • as employees was actually critical for them
  • to listen to us.
  • If our performance wasn't great, they
  • weren't going to listen to us.
  • So you had to have people that were leading these Resource
  • Groups, who were on the high potential list.
  • So it didn't make a difference.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: So let me ask a similar question.
  • But in your thirty years at Kodak, as a member of Lambda
  • at Kodak, what are you most proud of?
  • EMILY JONES: I guess I am proud of the very first management
  • event, where we actually shifted senior management in a way
  • that they took us seriously.
  • And we awakened them to the horrific misunderstandings
  • and the un-understandings of this population.
  • And they were so open to being educated going forward.
  • Yeah, I think that was a real remarkable event.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Now that you're here
  • KEVIN: I'm just going to have to listen to the recording.
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, you are.
  • Because I'm not repeating all this stuff.
  • KEVIN: I should've called you.
  • I don't know if you got my email this morning
  • or not, that I was going to be able make a 2:30, or 2:00.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: No, well we had a 1:00.
  • KEVIN: We had a 1:00?
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, that's all right.
  • Our 1:00 was Karen Hagberg.
  • KEVIN: Oh Christ, yes.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Emily was our 2:30.
  • KEVIN: Yeah, that's OK.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Kathryn Rivers is at 4:00.
  • EMILY JONES: It'll be fun for you to listen
  • to Kathryn following me.
  • Because her view of this is going to be the same time,
  • almost all the same stuff.
  • But it's going to be totally different.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, Kathryn?
  • EMILY JONES: Yeah, it's going to be fun.
  • You should go interview David.
  • KEVIN: Yes, I just emailed David.
  • Are we still recording?
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.
  • So let me let me finish this piece.
  • Since you don't identify yourself as an activist,
  • when did you start becoming involved with the Gay Alliance?
  • That was before you left Kodak?
  • EMILY JONES: Oh yeah.
  • Shirley Bowen got me on her board.
  • Cindy Martin was on that board.
  • Cindy Martin got me on the board of the Gay Alliance.
  • That was when Shirley was the president.
  • It was like six years before, in 1999.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
  • We need to have more conversation with you.
  • Because your involvement in so many
  • organizations, ESPA, Gay Alliance, HRC
  • EMILY JONES: Out and Equal.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Out and Equal.
  • I mean, I have to say to you, you may not
  • consider yourself an activist.
  • You may not consider yourself someone
  • who has been instrumental in creating the environment
  • and moving the agenda.
  • But you have been.
  • And you are and continue to be.
  • So even though it's only 2012 and you will
  • live for another forty years
  • EMILY JONES: Oh please (both laugh),
  • not unless there's really good stem cell technology.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Your contribution to the gay community
  • goes far beyond your work with Lambda
  • at Kodak, and far beyond your personal commitment
  • and passion.
  • And we have to stop.
  • Because Kathryn's probably on the other side of the door,
  • or trying to get in.
  • EMILY JONES: But I have to tell you.
  • The core of my engagement is around the business community
  • and always has been.
  • Because as I said before, and this is really important:
  • if the business community affirms,
  • recognizes a demographic, it is legitimate.
  • They have the ability to legitimize a demographic.
  • When they start advertising to them,
  • when they start saying they're important,
  • that's where it all shifts.
  • And that shift affects public policy.
  • That's why that was so central.
  • And it plays out in what I do with Out and Equal.
  • And it plays out with what I did with making sure
  • that the Corporate Equality Index got established and got
  • really working as a viable entity,
  • and the Gay Alliance to make sure
  • that we had these ongoing educational events that I
  • did in the early days here, to engage the community.
  • Because it all centers around this legitimizing
  • of that particular demographic.
  • And the way it's done is that the business says
  • it's real, needed, necessary.
  • And we need to affirm it.
  • That's really where it all came from.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.
  • I hear that.
  • EMILY JONES: Oh, OK.
  • EVELYN BAILEY: I do.
  • EMILY JONES: I guess there's something else I'm supposed
  • to say, or do, or be, but
  • EVELYN BAILEY: No.
  • EMILY JONES: That's the way I think about it.
  • KEVIN: So before you leave, I do have some questions actually
  • I was going to ask Kathryn.
  • But here's a question for you.
  • Where is Cindy Martin these days?
  • EMILY JONES: She's in yeah, don't ask Kathryn.
  • KEVIN: Yeah, I know.
  • Yeah, that's right.
  • Just thank you for reminding me of that.
  • EMILY JONES: Oh please, don't even bring it up.
  • A whole set of other things will happen.
  • She's in San Francisco.
  • She's a consultant now.
  • She's married to Selisse Berry, who's
  • the Executive Director of Out and Equal Workplace
  • Advocates in San Francisco.
  • KEVIN: Do you still keep in touch with Deb Price at all?
  • EMILY JONES: You know, it's funny you bring that up.
  • I just was opening one of my old paper address books.
  • I saw her name in it and her phone number.
  • And I was like, I should give her a call.
  • I do that every once in a blue moon, maybe four, five years.
  • But no, not