Big companies need more minority execs

To say that it's lonely at the top does not overstate theisolation of black vice presidents at Fortune 500 companies in theChicago area.

Seven of the 10 largest Fortune 500 companies in the area have atotal of 13 blacks working as vice presidents or higher, according toa Chicago Sun-Times survey to which the three other companies did notrespond. That is in this day and age an astonishingly low 2 percentof the more than 625 executive positions involved.

Whatever else can be said about the dearth of minorities inexecutive offices, one thing is clear. There's a mission here forsomeone or some group to help make room at Chicago's corporateconference tables for more minorities.

The firms should be encouraged to aggressively recruit moreminorities who can move up their corporate ladders and to devote moreof their philanthropy to pre-college education in order to widen anddeepen the pool of qualified candidates for executive suite jobs.

Some firms, like Amoco Corp., have expanded their recruitment ofblack engineering, business and science graduates. Through its AmocoFoundation, that company has also announced that it will contributemore than $60 million, almost half of its philanthropic budget, toeducation programs over the next five years.

Organized pressure on companies to do more, including suchconfrontational tactics as the boycott now being pursued by OperationPUSH against the makers of Nike athletic shoes, is one legitimateapproach to the problem.

There are others. More black and other minority youngstersshould be able to dream about becoming top-job business executives.Corporations, educators, community-minded groups have to sell them onthe dream - and prepare them for making it come to pass.