ABSTRACT
Southern California would be closely identified with the diversity management movement. A southern California preview of the more expensive and nationally based First Annual National Diversity Conference was offered in Los Angeles in early February 1991. Harrison synthesized key diversity management rationales that were emerging in conferences and literature, especially the Big Two: demographic change and the threat of economic and educational polarization. Harrison had obviously studied R. Roosevelt Thomas's Harvard Business Review article on diversity management. Harrison repeated what was becoming a diversity mantra. African American social worker Helen Mendes traced the origins of her diversity consulting firm to her early 1970s experience in writing an international cookbook. Uvaldo Palomares was another southern California consultant who tapped temporarily into diversity consulting by way of lecturing on his patented LATS program—Leadership Attributes Training Series. Security Pacifies emphasis on diversity management apparently did little to strengthen the banks position sufficiently to prevent a takeover by Bank of America in 1992.
