Robert B. Ford

"And then working, ensuring that we create a resilient chain, a resilient supply chain, ensuring that our suppliers are meeting the standards that we hold for ourselves. And one of the things that we noticed as we were looking at how much we spend on diverse suppliers was noticing that a lot of our diverse suppliers were very much in what I would call more the service areas, right, service areas such as I'd say, taking care of our facilities. And I noticed as we were looking through that, that was a high churn kind of business. That being part of that business, you could have the account with Abbott one year and then you could be switched out another year. So we looked and said, okay, how can we build more generational, sustainable kind of wealth in the more diverse supply chain? And one of the things that we said we looked at is there's a lot of suppliers in medical devices and diagnostics that aren't as diverse as they could be. So we've actually been working with Lisk and we're providing a $40 million grant, not just money, but actually expertise and time from the Abbott engineers to help diverse businesses get into the business of medical device supply, diagnostic, raw material supply, because we feel that's more sustainable."