DALLAS – Employees feel more loyalty toward a company that shows it’s about more than the bottom line. That’s the message Diane Barton delivered upon being recognized by the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance(IARA) at the group’s summer roundtable. Barton, Manheim’s vice president of customer experience, was saluted for her 10 year’s heading up the company’s fund-raising efforts for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Sibley Heart Center Michael P. Fisher Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.

Fisher was an attorney for Manheim who died in a plane crash in 1998. His family wanted to take up a charitable cause as a memorial and chose pediatric heart disease because both Fisher and his daughter, Stuart, had heart problems as children.

Barton, who was director of marketing at the time, was put in charge of Heart-to-Hearts, Manheim’s fundraising effort. She’s moved up the company’s structure through a variety of positions, but has remained committed to the charitable cause.

The fundraising has helped the Fisher CICU become one of the most prominent facilities of its kind in the world. In addition to medical treatment, Heart-to-Hearts covers the emotional issues of living with chronic disease through Camp Braveheart. This summer camp comes with all the usual activities, like canoeing and crafts, but has extra needs, like multiple defibrillators. Barton said the goal now is moving beyond treatment to research. She said Manheim has benefited as much from its involvement at the Fisher CICU as the hospital has.

“When employees see a business just isn’t about the business at hand, but has a heart, it makes the employees put more of their hearts into that business,” she said.