Abbott Goes to Washington

Some companies do good things in the community and don't necessarily tell anyone about it. Other companies do good things and publicize it. And then there are some companies that go in front of the U.S. House of Representatives to talk about the good they're doing.

That's exactly what Abbott, a global health care company, did on Wednesday, with a company representative testifying before the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, which is part of the larger Committee on Science and Technology. The representative did so, according to this press release, to talk up the company's "contributions as a private sector company in a multi-stakeholder, systems approach to improving kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education."

During the last five years, the Abbott Fund (the company's nonprofit foundation) has contributed $23 million in the United States to support programs that advance STEM. In addition, Abbott employees can be found throughout schools and programs giving back to the community by sharing their interest in the sciences.

The hearing the company representative attended was focused on Chicago Public Schools, so it made even more sense for Abbott to be there, since its corporate headquarters are in Chicago and it's where they do a lot of their science outreach.

According to this January op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, science scores of U.S. students are stagnating, so any help that Abbott can provide is certainly of value.

Photo courtesy of artfulblogger via Flickr.