Toyota Motor North America opened the doors to its Plano headquarters five years ago this week. The move has already transformed the company and its community. Here’s how.
When then-CEO of Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) Jim Lentz opened the new Plano, Texas, headquarters in July of 2017, he set a high bar for the company and its employees.
“The opening of our new headquarters is an extraordinary next step in Toyota’s 60-year journey in the United States,” Lentz said. “With team members from four different companies together in one campus location, we believe this will inspire greater collaboration, innovation and faster decision making as we turn to and lead the future of mobility, all with an eye on our customers.”
Five years later, the company is making good on that promise – a promise that’s central to Toyota’s mission of Mobility for All.
Because even if most people know Toyota as a car company, it’s much more than that. And you can see it in the community Toyota now calls home. Here’s how:
Serving the Community
Since moving to North Texas, Toyota, including the Toyota USA Foundation and Toyota Financial Services (TFS), have contributed more than $30 million to Dallas-area nonprofits.
Toyota employees have engaged in unique ways, helping to address community challenges, collaborating to impact education, supporting conservation efforts, mentoring small business and working with nonprofits to help them do more.
Youth Development
Toyota kicked off community engagement in North Texas with $1 million to the Plano Academy High School. But that was just the beginning. Toyota then established a 12-week mentoring program with the school to teach Toyota problem solving using real world business challenge and Toyota employees partnered with teachers to provide Toyota project management education.
This depth of engagement is mirrored throughout North Texas. Some of Toyota’s efforts include:
- Establishing STEM programming through Project Lead the Way at various elementary, middle and high school programs – a total of 52 schools throughout North Texas;
- Creating four new Toyota Family Learning Centers, three of which are located in South Dallas through long-time partner National Center for Families Learning;
- Establishing a career exploration center in Garland with Junior Achievement; and
- Partnering with Lancaster ISD to create the Toyota Learning Academy supported by Toyota mentors.
West Dallas
Toyota’s largest and most comprehensive community engagement and youth-focused initiative in North Texas is in West Dallas.
Together with Dallas ISD, Southern Methodist University and the West Dallas community, Toyota is co-creating a new PreK-8 STEM-focused school – with onsite before and after-school programming and active engagement in the community to tackle issues that impact learning.
In the West Dallas community, Toyota helped to stand up a mobility solution to connect people to existing transportation, help bring in new reading and writing programs, and worked with local food pantries to help address basic needs.
Toyota employees also are volunteering through a mentor program to engage, empower and elevate students with the skills necessary for college and career success. And, together with Hispanic Scholarship Fund, numerous scholarships continue to be awarded.
The holistic effort in West Dallas is now the model for Toyota’s Driving Possibilities initiative – a $110 million commitment across 15 communities. This initiative of the Toyota USA Foundation will be funded in part by TMNA and TFS and will begin a phased rollout across the company’s operational communities nationwide.
Inclusive Mobility and Safety
As a mobility company, Toyota also helped launch a Mobility-as-a-Service pilot together with AARP in Dallas-Fort Worth; co-developed a mobile farmers market together with University of North Texas at Dallas to bring fresh food to residents in South Dallas; and worked with VNA Meals on Wheels to help volunteers bring critical services to people.
With a focus on safety, Toyota continues to support programs focused on passengers through car seat safety education, teen driving, and a program through AARP for older drivers.
Sharing Knowledge
Another impactful way Toyota engages in the community is by sharing knowledge.
Locally, Toyota has shared principals of the Toyota Production System with nearly 40 nonprofits, helping to serve more people in need, improve healthcare, maximize available resources, and much more. Toyota has:
- Teamed up with Parkland Hospital to reduce emergency room wait times;
- Assisted Children’s Health to reduce rates of blood stream infections by 75%;
- Improved Covid-19 vaccination administration at mass vaccination sites in Dallas and Frisco;
- Reduced time to process blood sample kits for the Department of Public Safety Garland;
- Reduced costs to help serve more people with Meals on Wheels Collin County; and
- Partnered with multiple food pantries to scale up to serve more people, including multiple engagements with the North Texas Food Bank.
Volunteerism
Building on this work in the community includes active support for team member volunteerism and ongoing engagement through Toyota’s business practice groups. Toyota employees are helping to improve reading skills, coaching veterans through resume and interviewing workshops, mentoring young women, cleaning up local parks, and so much more. In fact, in the last fiscal year, Toyota employees in Plano have volunteered at 121 nonprofits throughout D-FW.
Jobs
However, job creation – both direct and indirect jobs – might be one of the most impactful contributions.
By the time Toyota’s new campus opened in 2017, the company was already well on its way to creating hundreds of local jobs and boosting the North Texas economy. That commitment included:
- Jobs for up to 4,000 employees in Plano
- More than 1,000 new employees hired locally
- By 2017, more than 90% of new hires from past 12 months were hired locally
For nearly 65 years, Toyota has been part of the fabric of every community where it does business across the United States. And locally over the past five years, Toyota has laid the groundwork for a lasting legacy that will only continue to grow.
Toyota is proud to partner with its neighbors – not to just to make and sell cars, but to create an ever-better society.