US Synthetic’s Long-Lasting Mission to Improve Lives Together with CHOICE Humanitarian

Eric Pope is the VP of Operations for US Synthetic. This transcript comes from Eric’s remarks at the 2024 Breakfast of Humanitarians where US Synthetic was awarded the Corporate Impact Award. Read more about the Breakfast event in the blog recap or listen to the recording. The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Teresa Larsen, Chair of the Board of Directors for CHOICE Humanitarian: I am truly honored to present our 2024 Corporate Impact Award today to US Synthetic. The relationship between CHOICE Humanitarian and US Synthetic dates back to 1998, when Louis Pope first took his family on an expedition to Mexico. On that expedition, Louis saw how CHOICE helped fulfill US Synthetic's mission to “Improve Lives.” He decided that he wanted to provide an opportunity for his employees to have the same experience that he and his family had just had.

A short time later, in a partnership with CHOICE, Louis was instrumental in setting up Yehu Microfinance in Kenya, an institution that has served over 35,000 clients across 15 offices.

US Synthetic has organized expeditions and encouraged employees to take part, both by helping offset the costs and by allowing some of the time to count as work hours. The pandemic aside, US Synthetic has done a yearly expedition for nearly 20 years and has developed excellent leadership training modules which they often share with community members on those expeditions.

Perhaps their most impressive contribution, though, is through their payroll giving program. More than 180 employees choose to donate to CHOICE each month as a payroll deduction, and I believe it’s as little as $2.50. Talk about a ripple effect. They have, to date, contributed over $700,000.

So it is with immense pleasure and gratitude that CHOICE Humanitarian presents US Synthetic with our 2024 Corporate Impact Award. Please join me in thanking and congratulating Eric Pope, who is the VP of Operations at US Synthetic.

Eric Pope: Thank you, Teresa. It's an honor and a privilege to be here. It's a privilege for me to be here and accept this award on behalf of US Synthetic and my dad, who couldn't be here today.

Landen Garner (Director of Engineering Good, US Synthetic) let me know that I was the fifth choice to be here to receive this award, but I'll take it. I'm glad to be doing it. Again, my dad, Louis, who started us all on this and is the founder of US Synthetic, sends his regards and his love. I'm sure many of you know him and have relationships with him, and he wished he could be here today.

I just want to take a little bit and just talk about the ripple effect within our company, really starting with my dad. It started at one point for us and has continued to spread. I want to talk a little bit about what it's done, what we've done, and why it continues to ripple out and go on forever.

Let me take one step back. One of our philosophies at US Synthetic is this idea of everyone's got to be a problem solver. We believe we can make the world a better place if everybody can see problems every single day, relative to any dimension or any aspect of their life. We encourage problem solving. One of the critical dimensions, if you will, relative to problem solving is this idea that you have to be able to see first. Once you see, then you can start the problem-solving process. 

So my dad was telling me a little bit about his journey and how he got to the point of US Synthetic and how his ripple effect started. He had the opportunity to grow up during his junior high years in Iran. His dad was asked to go start up an oil refinery in a chemical engineering program there, and so he packed up his family from Utah and went from this comfortable world to a completely different world than they'd ever imagined. They lived there for three years, and as a family had a remarkable experience. They speak very fondly of the people, the culture, and just everything about it. I've never heard anything negative spoken of that country from him and my grandparents.

When he’s there as a junior high aged kid in Iran, he's able to see some things there. He gets to travel around the world. And what he sees is poverty. Having grown up in Utah and then going to a different part of the world, he sees poverty, and it weighs on him. I think until you see it, feel it, smell it—you really don't get it. As a kid, he saw this, and that's when his problem-solving process began. He saw people with great, great needs, and so he thought, “I've got to do something about that.”

One of the things that we know is that when people see problems, they naturally start to activate their minds to do problem solving. They want to contribute. They want to participate. But it requires us to see first. He saw, and his mind started to activate. He said, “I’ve got to figure out what I can do to help the people that I saw.”

In time, he goes through his career, and he starts up US Synthetic. He starts to make some money in the early 90s, and he starts thinking, “I’ve got to do something with my wealth. This money's coming now, what am I going to do with it?” Immediately, his mind goes back to those images that he saw as a young kid of people who were suffering, and he says “I've got to go help people of the world to eliminate poverty.” He was trying to find ways of doing it, and I think he met Dr. Mayfield really early on, who introduced him to CHOICE Humanitarian. My dad said, “This is an organization that I think we can do some good with.” 

So it was actually late in 1997, and he scheduled a CHOICE expedition and took our whole family. It was right after Christmas. We spent the new year into 1998 in Mexico, and that's when we were introduced to the first brick machine I've ever seen. We packed up our tents and our sleeping bags. We camped in the village. My whole family went. I'd been married just for six weeks, and my younger brother had just got home from his honeymoon, and they went on the trip. It was just all these new in-laws, and we were all in Mexico. We didn't know what we were getting into, and it was a remarkable experience, and it changed our lives forever.

Certainly it's this ripple effect. It started with what my dad saw early on. He took his children to see as well. Now we've seen, we've felt, and now we want to do something.

I’ve got brothers-in-law here that ended up moving to Kenya and creating a career around this. Two of my brothers-in-law and sisters did that. My dad moved to Kenya and did some work there. We saw so many needs. Not just poverty, but we saw healthcare needs; we saw water needs; we saw problem-solving needs; we saw people who just need jobs; we saw commerce and enterprise. There were just so many needs. The more we could see, the more our minds spun on what could be done.

For Louis, this ripple effect spread to his friends and his co-workers. We have a lot of co-workers that are represented here that saw problems. We’ve got a bunch of engineers that have done a lot of engineering projects, from the coconut oil press, to brick machines, to a water well drill. Just a lot of engineering. We took the things that we knew—the talents and the skills that we had—and we were trying to apply them to the needs that we saw in the world. This ripple effect just kept going and going.

In fact, I'd like to know just by raise of hand, how many people have associated with US Synthetic in some form? I just want to see the ripple effect of who has some association with US Synthetic. There's quite a few in this room that are partnerships over time. We value them, we appreciate you, and you've made a big difference in our lives.

As we saw these problems and our minds were activated, we started to solve them in a lot of different ways. One thing that was clear was the answer to this—why does it keep going? One reason is it's fun to solve problems, to lift, and to help people.

One CHOICE trip we went on was maybe 15 years ago. Again, it was back to Mexico. I took my daughter, and she was maybe 8 years old at the time. We went to Mexico, and it was a wonderful trip, and at the end of the trip—I don’t know if they still do this?—but they give you a card. It's kind of a note to yourself, right? And I remember getting that card, and the expedition leader was saying to write a note to yourself so that you can read that and remember. Remember what you saw, remember what you felt, and remember what you did, because that will be a catalyst for you to continue in this.

And I remember thinking, “What should I write to myself?” Shiloh, as she was speaking up here, it reminded me exactly what I wrote and what I was thinking. And that was this:

I wanted my children to see the world. I wanted them to see poverty. I want them to see suffering. I want them to see need. Why? Because I want them to participate. I want them to participate in lifting people up.

As we did that and my daughter was with me, it did create that spark. She's been to Peru, Jordan, Panama, Kenya, and all these places because she has this deep connection to people. I think the reason this keeps going is because when we see need, we connect to people, and we see how beautiful they are and how wonderful they are. We build this general respect and love for individuals. And I thought, “I want my children to respect the people of the world. I want them to see their goodness. I want divisiveness and contention to go away. I want you to lift others. I want that to be the pattern in your life and the lives of all of us because that will make the world a better place.”

That's what I want. And that's why it continues. That's why we have all of our good co-workers at US Synthetic and why they keep giving. They just keep giving out of their paycheck because they want to participate in this. I believe that this idea of just connecting with people, loving them, serving them, lifting them, and respecting our differences, ultimately, it just makes the world a better place.

I appreciate all of you for all you're doing and all our partnerships. This is a wonderful organization to be part of, and I appreciate this award on behalf US Synthetic. We welcome it, and we look forward to working with all of you in the future. Thank you very much.

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