October 4, 2007

Hispanic Business and LATINA Style magazines praise utility for diversity

ROSEMEAD, Calif., Oct. 4, 2007—Two national Latino magazines have ranked Southern California Edison (SCE), an Edison International company, among the best companies in the United States in workplace diversity and for Latinas.

Hispanic Business magazine, a national publication that reports on business issues, named SCE as the best workplace diversity company in the United States. The magazine ranked 60 companies, led by SCE, as the “Diversity Elite” in the nation.

And for the ninth consecutive year, LATINA Style magazine ranked SCE as one of the “best 50 companies for Latinas to work for in the United States,” placing the utility among the top 10 companies on its list.

“The fact that SCE has become one of the most recognized companies in America for diversity is a credit to our employees who strive to create a work force that reflects the rich diversity of our customer base,” said John E. Bryson, chairman and chief executive officer of Edison International.

At SCE, the largest electric utility in California, ethnic minorities make up 49.1 percent of the work force, 33.3 percent of senior officials, managers and high-level professionals and 60.0 percent of new hires.

In its September 2007 issue, Hispanic Business announced, “Southern California Edison has learned to recognize and appreciate the huge diversity of its consumer base, its employees, and its potential labor market, especially in the heartland for most of its 4.8 million customers, the Los Angeles region.”

“We need to know what is going on in that marketplace,” Frank Quevedo, SCE’s vice president of equal opportunity, told Hispanic Business in a recent interview. “We need to connect with the communities we serve.”

The company monitors leadership, recruitment, retention, promotion and other performance measures to make sure “we're doing what we say we’re doing,” Quevedo said.

In 2006, Hispanic Business ranked SCE third on its list of the top 50 companies in America in workplace diversity.  That same year, LATINA Style magazine ranked SCE as one of the “best 50 companies for Latinas to work for in the United States.”

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An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is the largest electric utility in California, serving a population of more than 13 million via 4.8 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within central, coastal and Southern California.