ABOUT THIS REPORT The information in this report is ... - Cummins

Our history
The values of integrity, innovation and corporate responsibility
have deep roots at Cummins, going back to the Company’s
founding in 1919. Three men helped shape the Company
in each of these areas. Their influence is still felt today.
INNOVATION
INTEGRITY
Introduction
Clessie Cummins (1888-1968) was
a driver and mechanic for a Columbus, Ind.
businessman. Cummins had a fascination
for diesel engines.
Born on a farm in Indiana, Cummins was
W.G. Irwin (1866-1943) was the
businessman who hired Clessie Cummins
as his driver and mechanic. The son of
a banker, he pursued profits with a sense
of community mission.
Introduction
intrigued by all things mechanical growing
While he was initially cool to Cummins’
up, tinkering with gadgets at an early age
promotion of diesel technology, he agreed
and building a miniature steam engine at 11.
to let Cummins use a vacant forge building
His family eventually moved to Columbus,
as an auto repair shop and even supplied
Ind. where they operated a business making
him with some tools.
barrels and casks.
Later, Irwin decided to build a garage
He would drop out of school and work for
several Indiana machinists and automakers
before taking the chauffeuring job. Cummins
opened a repair shop in 1913 in addition
to his driving duties. That business would
become a machine shop, performing work
for the military during World War I, and then
the Cummins Engine Company in 1919,
shortly after the war ended.
A prolific inventor and entrepreneur,
Cummins promoted diesel technology in
barnstorming trips across the United States.
He would continue inventing throughout
his tenure at the Company and even
after he left Columbus in 1945 and
moved to California.
near the family’s home, including room
for Cummins to experiment with the
engines he was so passionate about.
Eventually, Irwin agreed to back the creation
of the Cummins Engine Company. He was
the source of nearly all of the Company’s
$50,000 starting capital.
The business got off to a rocky start,
however, and both men talked of shutting
it down. Irwin’s family, however, persuaded
him to keep the business going to provide
jobs for the young men of Columbus.
Nineteen years after the Company was
founded, the Cummins Engine Company
turned its first profit.
CORPORATE
RESPONSIBILITY
J. Irwin Miller (1909-2004) was the grandnephew
of W.G. Irwin. Educated at Yale
and Oxford, he joined the Company in
1934, was elected president in 1947
and became chairman and CEO in 1951.
Under his watch, Cummins entered
India and China long before most other
American companies. He helped organize
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March
on Washington while leading the National
Council of Churches.
Miller believed passionately that a company
was only as strong as the communities
where it did business and where its
employees lived and worked.
“If previous generations hadn’t done a lot of
personal work and spent money which their
generation was never going to profit from,
this wouldn’t be a good community and our
other plant communities wouldn’t be good
communities,” he once said when asked
why the Company invested in philanthropy.
“We have an obligation not to use up
that asset but to do as well in our time
as every previous generation has in its
time,” he added.
TOP Driver, mechanic and
Cummins founder Clessie
Cummins was fascinated
with diesel engines.
LEFT W.G. Irwin hired Clessie
Cummins as his driver and
ended up financing his dream
of starting an engine company.
RIGHT J. Irwin Miller believed
Cummins had an obligation
to all of its stakeholders -
employees, communities,
shareholders, government
officials and more.
8 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2011–2012 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2011–2012 9