Employees are best pick of the crop for Folsom's Intel

Intel Corp. is not only the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on 2010 net revenue of $43.6 billion, but also is a major presence in communities where it has operations, including Folsom, where it's the city's largest employer with more than 6,200 workers on an annual payroll of about $770 million.Besides its chips, the Santa Clara-based technology leader is known for its philanthropy, a corporate-wide policy that's endorsed strongly from the top. One of the four objectives of its global strategy is caring for its employees and planet Earth and inspiring the next generation."Every person at Intel has a role in achieving this objective," said company president and chief executive Paul Otellini. Over the past decade Intel and the Intel Foundation have invested more than $1 billion "to improve education globally, partnering with educators, governments and other companies," he saidCorporate-wide last year, close to half of Intel's total workforce donated more than 1 million hours of service in schools and nonprofit organizations globally. In Folsom, the company's employees last year generated more than $1.4 million for local schools and nonprofits by volunteering 170,000 hours in the local community."Under the Intel Involved Matching Grant Program, the company provides financial donations to those nonprofits," said Grace Davis, corporate affairs director and in charge of all of the local Intel philanthropic efforts, community support, volunteer and education programs."We have a very robust employee volunteer program. The nice part is that Intel from its Foundation also follows up with financial contributions," she said."So for every employee -- based on the hours they donate to a nonprofit, including sports teams, anything that's a nonprofit -- we follow up with an annual cash donation. For schools, it's $25,000 and for nonprofits it's a maximum of $10,000," the latter figure working out to about $10 per employee volunteer hour.Davis said the Intel Involved Matching Grant Program aims to recognize and motivate company employees to "engage in outreach and volunteerism to make our communities a better place to live work and play. Its objective is to support employees' giving their time and talent to qualified schools and nonprofits."We also want to recognize our employees who give generously of their time beyond school-related activities and give them the opportunity to earn money for organizations that are meaningful to them," said Davis.Folsom employees contributed $1.3 million to the United Way in 2010, a total matched by Intel. In the past five years, Intel has contributed close to $50 million towards educational institutions and nonprofit organizations throughout Northern California.Besides giving to communities, Intel is noted for giving to its employees. It has a Great Place to Work program devoted to rewarding and recognizing workers to assure they enjoy working at Intel in Folsom."Through consistently creating morale-boosting activities, like providing free tickets to high-level sporting events, casino nights, speaker series, on-site sporting activities and an on-site weekly farmers market during the summer, Intel works very hard to ensure their employees feel valued," Davis said. * * *BEST COMPANY TO WORK FORWinner: Intel Corp.Address: 1900 Prairie City Road, FolsomPhone: (916) 356-8080Online: intel.com