This week, our CEO and Co-founder, Dan Rootenberg, spoke heartfelt words to our entire team about the historic current events happening in the world around us, and SPEAR’s position against racism.

More importantly, he outlined the following action items:

On behalf of the company, (1) Dan has joined the CEO Action Pledge for Diversity and Inclusion; (2) SPEAR offered paid time off to our team members this week so they can take action in their own way: to protest, meditate, donate time to the movement, or any other way they may deem fit; and (3) SPEAR announced it is forming a Racial Justice  committee to advise us on our path forward with regards to these critical issues.

To provide our entire community with SPEAR’s point of view and commitment, below is the original letter Dan sent to the SPEAR team on Tuesday:

Team,

We find ourselves in the midst of a pivotal moment in our history, one that has evoked strong feelings of understandable sadness, anxiety, and anger. We must not let this moment go unrecognized or unaddressed.

Our country has witnessed a deplorable act of racism and brutality. We speak out loudly against what has transpired. Our hearts ached watching the senseless murder of a gentleman named George Floyd at the hands of blatant police brutality in Minnesota.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Emotions are raw and anger is justifiable.

At SPEAR, there is no place for racism of any kind. We do not tolerate discrimination, hatred, or violence in our workplace or in our society.

It is important for everyone at SPEAR to remember what our company stands for.

We stand in solidarity with the black community in fighting racial injustice and inequality.

We are a company that has always stood for inclusion and ascension, for striving to be better than we were yesterday, and most importantly valuing empathy for others regardless of race, color, religion, ethnicity, who they love or to whom they pray.

Since this is a day of action, SPEAR is committing to the following:

On behalf of our company, I will be signing a pledge called CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion. Our leadership team discussed this morning what it means and we will be pledging the following:

• Reinforce that SPEAR is a trusting workplace where we can have complex sometimes difficult conversations about diversity and inclusion.
• Implement unconscious bias education.
• Share best practices (and what doesn’t work) with our sister companies that have taken the same pledge.
• Create a vision for a strategic inclusion plan.

We are living in uncertain and unsettling times. We must stand up for what we believe in and support what is right.

I call for doing so with open hearts, open minds, and doing our part in the hope for change.

Sincerely,
Dan