The Charlotte Area Liaison Group

Our First Twenty Years

The Charlotte Area Liaison Group had its beginnings in the Charlotte Area Personnel Association. CAPA, as it was called, is now the Charlotte Area Society for Human Resource Management. In about 1989, a few members from CAPA were discussing their recent experiences with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Several of those HR professionals began meeting at different businesses. They would share the stories of their audit experience and compare the questions and requests that had come up during the audit. They invited employees of the OFCCP and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) officials to come and talk to the group.

The OFCCP asked one of the founding members of this group, Shedrick (Rick) Williams to consider becoming a local chapter of the National Industry Liaison Group (NILG). The purpose of these groups was to foster the spirit of cooperation between OFCCP and employers who are federal contractors. Rick had previously worked as an investigator at the OFCCP. In July of 1991, they named the group, The Charlotte Industry Liaison Group. Representatives from the government agencies would come for the first part of the meeting. Afterward, business leaders would discuss the challenges of being audited. They were all being hit with audits and needed to talk to other businesses going through the same thing. They became familiar with the different Compliance Officers that were conducting the audits. They found that the audit experience greatly improved after that. Again, the major thrust was to minimize the adversarial relationships by providing a forum to remove barriers, encourage open communications and promote trust to enhance cooperative compliance efforts.

The name of the group later changed to the Charlotte Area Liaison Group. Some of the leaders of CALG helped to form the Triangle ILG in the Raleigh area and the South Carolina ILG.

In August 1997, CALG was awarded the Superior Achievement in Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Award from the U. S. Department of Labor.

In 2003, the three ILG’s in the Carolinas hosted the NILG annual convention in Charleston, SC, which was very successful.