SCE&G president discusses company values, code of conduct during annual Vance Lecture

November 16, 2006

The president and chief operating officer of South Carolina Electric & Gas outlined his company’s approach to ethical and values-driven business decisions Wednesday during Presbyterian College’s annual Vance Lecture on Business Ethics.

Kevin B. Marsh, who has worked for SCE&G since 1984, told students in the audience that he remembers graduating from college and naively taking for granted that everyone would behave ethically in their business dealings. Marsh said he quickly learned the opposite, “that not everybody shares that philosophy.”

Businesses or corporations that deal ethically with their customers, partners, and shareholders understand that good conduct must be shared throughout the company and incorporate every decision made by each employee, Marsh said.

“You simply have to understand the basic rules – and you have to stick to them,” he said.

Some companies, on the other hand, obviously did not stick to the rules, said Marsh. This “dark side of business” – represented by Enron, Health South, and WorldCom, among others – clearly failed, he said, because they did not either establish or live by a set of values and a code of conduct that makes business ethics a reality instead of just an ideal, he said.

It is vitally important that every employee should understand and act by those rules because, as recent history has proven, it takes only one employee not following the rules to get a company into major trouble, Marsh said.

As a result of the wrongdoing associated with leaders from the “dark side,” trust in corporate America is at low tide, he said.

“I’m still upset about it,” Marsh said. “I want to make sure that the next wave of people who come along won’t make those mistakes so we can build our credibility back up in this profession.”

Marsh presented his company’s approach to practicing sound ethics – made manifest in its stated values and code of conduct. Each employee, regardless of title or place on the pay scale, is trained to recognize and adhere to these guidelines, he said. They encompass not only sound business practices but also safety, personal integrity, diversity, and an environment that invites criticism and welcomes whistleblowers.

Simply put, Marsh said, “if you do what is right, you can eliminate most of your problems.”

It is also important, he noted, that the community be a part of a company’s values and code of conduct. Employees must avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing so that the community is comfortable trusting that the company is doing more than just making money.

“Things must not only be right but look right,” Marsh said.

Companies that are successful and ethical are those who employ and work with people they trust, he said. It begins, he noted, by being one of those people in the first place.

“Out in the world, you’ve got to decide what is right and wrong,” Marsh said. “You’re going to find many, many experiences where you’ve got to make a decision in your business career. Sometimes it’s just you, or it’s part of a small department, or maybe a whole company. It’s hard to stand up against a large crowd, especially if you’re in a gray area. But that’s where I encourage you to talk, communicate, and challenge each other.

“… In the end, you’ll have to live with yourself at the end of the day and know that you did the right thing … to protect you and your business, to protect your career and your reputation.”

The Vance Lecture Series in Business Ethics was established in 2002 with a $50,000 gift from the Bailey Foundation in Clinton. The series was created in honor of the late Robert M. Vance of Clinton, a two-time chairman of the PC board of trustees and a key leader as a banker and textile executive. The permanent endowment supports an annual lecture and a two-day residency for a business leader to serve as an “executive-in-residence” to help PC students explore the business world through the lens of integrity and honorable decision-making.