Companies win ethics award

Two Newport-Mesa companies are set to share the stage with renowned

basketball coach John Wooden on Tuesday when the firms are honored as

exemplars of responsible business practices.

Newport Beach’s CWS Capital Partners LLC and Costa Mesa’s Mission

Controls Automation Inc. were two of five Orange County businesses

selected as recipients of the Passkeys Foundation’s Ethics in America

Awards.

This will be the 10th year the Mission Viejo-based foundation has

given the awards. Wooden was selected as the foundation’s first

National American Heritage Honoree of Ethical Distinction. The

foundation’s president, Russell Williams, said Wooden’s honor is

something like a lifetime achievement award for ethical behavior.

“He sets the bar,” Williams said.

Sports fans know Wooden for coaching the UCLA men’s basketball

team to 10 NCAA championships, including seven in a row. The former

coach is also known for his “pyramid of success,” which teaches

personal achievement through values such as loyalty, self-control and

team spirit.

Williams said the companies were selected after being given the

chance to complete a questionnaire pertaining to their practices.

Eight firms were given the chance to reply, and the five honorees

were the ones that agreed to provide answers. Williams said a

seven-member selection committee decided which firms to approach

after doing some “ethical sleuthing.”

To have their replies considered, the businesses were required to

assure the foundation that company managers did not know of any

ethical problems their companies may be facing in the immediate

future.

“The interesting thing of ethical integrity is a lot of

organizations are afraid of saying, ‘Yeah, we are [ethical],’ and

then something happens and they have egg on their face,” Williams

said.

The questionnaire asked companies to describe matters such as

whistle-blower procedures, how they maintain ethical cultures and how

they responded to an ethical dilemma.

CWS Capital Services, a real estate investment company, said in

its response that company managers need to set examples of

responsible behavior. The company stated that moral practices flow

from the top to the firm’s lower levels and that dishonest practices

would ruin decades of work overnight.

“I think clarity is important,” CWS Capital president Gary Carmell

said. “Unethical actions are not productive in a long-term business

sense. It’s really hard to build and really easy to destroy.”

Mission Controls president Craig Nelson affirmed the importance of

being careful when hiring new employees. Candidates for employment at

Mission Controls meet with a committee of the company’s staffers, who

must all agree the prospective employee will be a good fit with the

firm.

Nelson also said his company, which is not publicly traded, gives

employees a stake in the firm’s future by allowing them to buy stock

and vote for the firm’s board of directors. Nelson said he wants to

foster a sense of equality at Mission Controls.

“Every individual in the business needs to be considered as

important as any other,” Nelson said.

The Newport-Mesa companies -- as well as Option One Mortgage of

Irvine, St. Joseph Health System of Orange and Cypress-based

PacifiCare Health Systems -- are set to be honored Tuesday at The

Grove of Anaheim. Costa Mesa’s Vanguard University will co-host the

event. In the future, Williams hopes to reach beyond Orange County

for honorees.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards@latimes.com.