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Lexie Castor
Ms. Hamby
UWRT 1101
October 15, 2014
Underwriters Laboratories
Over 120 years ago, a company named Underwriters Laboratories (UL) was founded
after the Worlds Fair in Chicago had displayed the palace of electricity. It was because of the
multiple fires due to lack of a consistent requirement, that UL was born and founded by a person
named William Henry Merrill, who wrote the first standard for electricity.
Since that time the mission and the UL brand have stood for product safety and quality
performance. To stay relevant in this century UL has expanded the definition of safety to
include, security, health, sustainability, supply chain, environment and much more. Within this
evolution the mission has stayed constant-working to deliver safe products for people worldwide.
UL is 11,000 people strong and has facilities in over 60 countries spanning the globe.
The company is structured into six key business units to include: Commercial &
Industrial, Environment, Information & Insights, Life & Health, Consumer and Workplace
Health and Safety. It is because of my interest in the topic and my connections that I chose to
explore ULs Environment Business Unit as the focus of my discourse community topic.The
diversity and passion for the mission is very prominent. They work to communicate their
sustainability strategies and initiatives with advisory services and expertise that supports the
decision-making process every step of the way, including market research and strategy
development.

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Methodology
As you might guess, sitting in on a meeting and interviewing employees is quite
challenging because UL Environment has their discourse communities scattered all around the
globe. However, I happen to know Lisa Meier, Vice President (VP) and General Manager (GM)
of UL Environment located in Atlanta, Georgia; She is my mother. When I asked her to answer
a few questions regarding her position in the business and about the tight discourse community
she was a part of, she was able to spare some time to be interviewed. When speaking with her
about the environmental side of UL, she showed confidence and pride in what she was speaking
about. Meier has not been at UL for any real length of time, two years at most, so listening to her
speak was intriguing.
When asked why Meier joined this particular discourse community, she responded, I
changed careers to try something new. The area of sustainability seemed interesting and seemed
to be on an accelerated growth path. Quite honestly it has been a longer learning curve than I
anticipated. I believe this is due to the unique language spoken in this space. My goal, to make
the language more main stream. I then followed up with a question regarding what kinds of
unique language is spoken in the discourse community, she responded, Terms to describe
services like Environmental product declarations (EPD), life cycle assessments (LCA), and a
reference to certain standards that we develop from which our customers achieve certifications
too. A few such examples are UL 110 which is a mobile phone standard and Greenguard which
is a certification mark highlighting safer indoor air quality. There are also companies or
governments we work with that people in our community are familiar with, but those outside the
community may not recognize (USGBC, EPA, CEC, GreenSeal, C2C, Earthwards, etc).

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During my research on this discourse community, I faced quite a few limitations.

Unfortunately, I did not have the time to physically attend a meeting in person, however I was
able to attend a meeting via conference call. During the call, I felt very disconnected from the
conversation because there were so many acronyms and unique special terms it made the
conversation hard to follow. It confused me as they jumped from one topic to the next and the
flow of the conversation, to me, seemed very choppy and disorganized. However, as I was
listening and trying to follow along with what the group was discussing, I could easily pick out
who was the leader of the group conversation. The woman I could hear on the other side of the
phone seemed very confident in what she had to say about certain subjects and showed slight
emotion here and there when it came to giving people a chance once provided with a general
direction. She wanted them to do their job and to do it well.
I then asked a series of questions to dig a little more in depth about the discourse community
she was apart of like, what kinds of writing do you do on the job? Meier responded,
Communications with customers (either via email, formal letters, or newsletters),
communications with the team (either broadly or w/in a function and typically via email or
presentation format), communications with what we refer to as our core team (most senior
management who seek to understand the strategy. Learning the language of a discourse
community is not always easy, especially if you were not a member before and just recently
joined. UL is an industry that is continuously defining itself; while growing at an accelerated
pace, it is still new and seeks consistency in the internal language. What kinds of things are
important for communicating in this profession? A knowledge of sustainability, a vision for
where you believe it is headed and why, credibility among the network (those who have been

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in it for years and continue to help define the space), and most importantly the passion to make
a difference, explained Meier.
Motivating employees can also be a difficult task to pick up just like learning a discourse
communities language. As expressed in an article I briefly reviewed, there are several
opportunities to motivate a team of individuals. UL has something generated by corporate which
will take into consideration the individual BU performance. This is known as AEIP (All
Employee Incentive Program). The calculation will reward overall business units performance
as well as reward all UL employees and is generated based on a percent of base salary. There are
also sales incentive programs (SIP) for the sales teams and individual contributor rewards which
start at $25 and go up. UL also holds quarterly town hall meetings where they discuss the
business and highlight those performers that have gone beyond the scope of his or her role(s).
The most interesting and exciting motivator comes from the passion the team has for the overall
mission of the company as well as the mission of their business unit. When asked if some
employees in her discourse community were more involved than others Meier went on to say,
Yes, however most believe in the mission so they participate where time allows. There is also
quite a bit of involvement outside of work. We have had employees at a few of our sites
participate in initiatives like the ALS Bucket Challenge, and recently had 100% employee
participation to raise money for a selected charity. My takeaway on the topic of people
motivation is that it too seems to be unique to this community.
The nature of UL is so unique because of the work environment provided to the
employees. UL Environment employs many toxicologists and chemists which also have a unique
language, almost as if a discourse community inside of my community of focus. All this adds up
to my lack of understanding about what actually happens in and around the UL Environment

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business. Even with some pre-preparation and research on topics of environment and
sustainability, I would be considered an outsider in this discourse community.
When I first walked into where my mother worked, I was surprised to see and observe
what was taking place. When one thinks of the typical office space, you might think of
cubicles and tons of employees running everywhere just waiting for 6pm to roll around to
complete their long day at work. At UL Environment, this is not the case. When you first walk
into the office building, you are greeted by many quotes and pictures about articles and ads
referencing what they strive to achieve. What stood out the most among all was their mission
statement, Protecting public health and quality of life through programs that improve indoor
air.
Besides the mission statement, there were many different key facts that jumped out to me
and had me surprised as I examined the wall. Did you know, Asthma is the fastest growing
incurable disease in the world? Did you know, Formaldehyde is the most common volatile
organic compound emitting from indoor materials (VOCs)? Indoor air 2-5 times more polluted
than outdoor air and the average reduction in VOCs achieved by Greenguard certified products
was 80%. These facts serve as a purpose, not specifically for only the discourse community
insiders, but for the public themselves to become more aware. Not only did the office I observed
have important quotes and key facts on the walls, but it had laboratories in the building to test
various things. The larger laboratory chambers were specific to large items like mattresses,
furniture, and appliances. The smaller laboratory chambers were specific to small items like
electronics. They even have a room specific to testing air by gathering air in small vials, which
are then analyzed by an array of different scientists with different backgrounds that are involved
with UL.

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While I felt very disconnected from this discourse community as I researched it, the topic
still very much interests me. As I strive to hopefully finish college with an MBA, I hope over
time, to accumulate many connections and become a strong independent business woman just
like my mother. Someday, I hope to partake in another conference call and come to understand
the language and value of UL and its uniqueness.