How Cummins builds strong communities in Atlanta

“Every day that I’m blessed to wake up is another day to get it right. It’s another day to help somebody else.”

When Meko Taylor walks into a room, you understand why people lean in. Her energy arrives before any formal introduction does: warm, open, bright and impossible to ignore. 

She has the kind of presence that makes people feel seen quickly, whether she is talking with a nonprofit leader, coordinating a volunteer event or rallying Cummins employees around a community partnership. 

Meko is the Atlanta city leader for Cummins Advocating for Racial Equity, or CARE, a U.S. strategic commitment focused on creating inclusive communities, particularly for Black and Latino populations, across 12 cities where Cummins has a large manufacturing or distribution presence.

Under her leadership, Cummins in Atlanta has built a growing network of partners focused on education, workforce development, economic empowerment and other community needs. What stands out is the way Cummins shows up: not through one-time gestures, but through long-term partnerships and employee volunteerism. Cummins believes that business success depends on strong communities, and every day, Meko helps build them.

Meko did not begin her career expecting to work in corporate responsibility. Before Cummins, she worked in radio and television as a national producer and director. A contract opportunity brought her to Cummins. From there, she moved into marketing and community involvement by doing what came naturally: she volunteered.

Her story is shaped by resilience, service and the example of her parents. When she was 12, her father had an accident while doing wiring work, lost vision in his left eye and had to learn to walk again. 

While her mother stayed with him in Baltimore for two years during his recovery, Meko and her siblings became affectionately known as latchkey kids. Back home, she says, “it took the whole block” to help care for her, her brother and her sister. 

That season taught her what community looks like in practice: people stepping in, checking on one another and helping carry a family through a difficult time. It also gave her what she describes as “a lens of sensitivity,” shaping the empathy and inclusiveness she brings to her work.

Meko says her parents taught her to love unconditionally, meet people where they are and keep going through adversity. She has never heard her father complain, and his positivity continues to give her a different perspective on the world. Her father also taught her that “if you find something you love to do, you’ll never work again,” an idea that still shapes her life today.

Meko describes her role simply: bridging the gap between Cummins and the community. 

She knows corporate environments can be structured, but she also sees herself as a free thinker who expands what the work can look like through creativity, purpose and a fresh perspective.

Her team’s approach to identifying nonprofit partners is data-driven, strategic and deliberate, ensuring their missions align with Cummins’ and address the community’s most pressing needs. What she loves most, she says, is building relationships that “really move the needle.” 

Cummins does not define community engagement as writing a check and walking away. Meko is explicit about that. Real impact comes through “sweat equity,” community involvement, volunteerism and understanding the needs of the communities we serve.

She created a team of community partner liaisons, employees who volunteer alongside their regular jobs to help plan activities, coordinate with partners and extend the reach of the program. She recruited team members who had participated consistently in the company’s employee volunteer program, Every Employee Every Community, which provides all employees with at least four hours of paid time off each year to volunteer in their communities.

In Atlanta, Meko has helped build nine community partnerships across the city.

Community impact that earns recognition

Among those partners is the Gateway Center, an Atlanta organization supporting people experiencing homelessness through education, workforce development, mental health support and other services that help address issues that can lead to homelessness. 

For Meko, the partnership reflects the kind of impact Cummins wants to have in the city. That work helped earn Cummins the Gateway Center’s Corporate Partner of the Year award, a recognition that, she says, shows the difference they are making. 

That same approach extends to other community partners as well, including the Boys & Girls Club and Wings for Kids. For International Literacy Day, CARE donated books across North America, and in Atlanta, Cummins employees held a reading circle where they read to students and had the students read to them. That moment stayed with Meko because helping children learn to read means helping them build a foundation for progress in life.
 

For all the seriousness of her mission, Meko does not separate impact from joy. She teaches spin classes, including classes for senior citizens, and speaks about the joy of watching people feel strong and energized. 

That same sense of expression has followed her since childhood, when she played violin for years, performed in theater and found joy in creative spaces. 

She journals. She reflects. She protects her peace. She also enjoys roller skating, which she describes as freedom, just her, the wheels and the world around her. Sometimes, she says, skating is a reminder that it is okay to fall, get back up and keep moving.

“When I live fully outside of work, I show up more fully inside of work,” she says. “I lead with confidence because I’m not performing. I’m being who I am.”

That grounding is part of her leadership. “If I don’t take care and pour into myself, then there’s no way that I can pour into anyone else,” she says. 

Meko believes people do their best work when they feel secure in who they are. Whether she is working with educators, nonprofit leaders, employees or community members, she wants people to know what makes them come alive, because that energy carries into every interaction they enter.

In the evenings, when she reflects on her day, she says she feels warm, grateful to know she may have made a difference in the life of someone she will never meet. That kind of impact does not always show up in a spreadsheet. But in Atlanta, and in the people who feel more seen because of Meko’s leadership, you can feel it. 

Ask Meko how this work makes her feel, and she does not start with recognition or achievement. She talks about being part of something bigger. 

She sees herself as one piece of a larger effort to make communities stronger, workplaces better and opportunities more accessible. She also believes that work shapes culture inside Cummins by giving employees a deeper sense of purpose and connection.

“People do business with people that they like,” she says. “And people like people that care about you.”

For Meko, that idea applies as much to community impact as it does to business. Cummins has given her the chance to align her work with her purpose. In return, she has brought that same authenticity back to her team and the city she serves.

Building stronger communities through local action

This story is about more than one leader or one city. It is about what becomes possible when people choose to give back and leave a place stronger than they found it.

For Meko, that belief is personal. She believes strong communities, engaged employees and trusted partnerships are essential to long-term success.

“You have to give back,” she says.

She hopes people see that they do not have to choose between impact and joy or between career and community. In her words, it is possible to “lead with heart, live with purpose and still have fun along the way.”

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