Xerox CEO: Education Must Be Top Priority

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns warned of American decline unless the nation makes educating the next generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics innovators a major priority.

Burns' warning came at the Detroit Economic Club meeting at the Book Cadillac Hotel Wednesday.

Burns said the United States has fallen from first to 12th worldwide in college graduation rates and is headed for 16th this year. It turns out 500,000 science and engineering graduates a year to 1.5 million in Asia (and while they have more population, they also have much more poverty).

Americans' innovation has been in decline since 1990. Overall, she said, the number of jobs requiring STEM education is growing, the number of people qualified for those jobs is shrinking, "and we are closing our borders." That's a recipe for long-term economic decline.

She outlined a three-point plan for fixing the problem: First, a more diverse and more inspirational mix of STEM teachers to fire up students about a subject only 6 percent say they like. Second, a better effort at giving students examples of STEM careers and how much fun and how rewarding they are. And finally, measuring outcomes of educational efforts, giving communities templates of successful efforts.

"If you're not involved you need to get invovled" in local education, she told the crowd of about 200. "I think we have to lengthen our stride and quicken our pace, because time spent wondering what to do is... time lost to our competitors."

Burns also highlighted Xerox's turnaround in the last decade. The company went from thinking it was doing well in 1999, with a $66 stock price, growing revenue, earnings and cash flow, and happy customers, to crisis in 2000, with a stock price that "halved, halved again, and halved yet again," financial losses, declining sales, nonexistent cash flow and irate customers.

The company switched CEOs and "went to work," Burns said, focusing on customer desires and "managing every single dollar like it was a dollar in our own house." By "the end of the journey, the results were stunning."

In response to a question from the crowd, Burns cautioned against measuring success or accomplishment solely in one's title or salary.

"One of the most accomplished people I've ever met was my mother," she said. "She was a great mother, but also well-read and a contributor to society."

She defined success as "finding something you love, and working really hard to do it really well." With a grin, she added, "Hopefully it's legal."

Burns offered a mixed assessment of charter schools -- on the positive side, they can improve teaching, but she said if they have the effect of "leaving behind the most difficult to educate... that may not be the best outcome."

And Burns likened her time as CEO of Xerox to stewardship. "Xerox has has 10 CEOs, two of them women," she said. "Most people couldn't name any of them, but everyone can tell you what Xerox does. So I'm like the caretaker of a really nice house -- I just want to make sure I don't break something."

In a question and answer session with reporters after her speech, Burns also spoke of Xerox's $5.6 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services, making it the latest hardware maker to get into IT services.

"We're not integrating ACS into Xerox," she said. "We bought a company that was run very well ... and we bought it because it was run so well. There are some things we can help them with and there are definitely some things they can help us with. The one thing we didn't want to do, and integration often does this, is to destroy the core of the company by having them fall into everything Xerox does."

Burns also said Detroit appears to be coming back based on domestic automaker performance -- and that all of us have a role in preventing a double-dip recession.

"I think we all have an active role in not having one," she said. "I tell my team that we can help to have that not be the outcome. And the newspaper can help. And the schools can help."

How? "Don't get wrapped up in the things that you can't wrap your hands around. Don't worry about the global economic crisis. Worry about the local economic crisis. Focus on how you can do your job better. Focus on working with the schools, focus on cleaning up the community. Every burden you remove makes it better."

Highlights of Burns' speech should be up shortly at www.econclub.org. 

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