When American Airlines first hired me in 1989, I handled reservations all day, and then I came home each evening to my husband to start raising our family in Dallas.

Twenty years later, the husband is out of the picture and my partner now is a woman. Together we are raising two teenagers and four dogs. I still work at American Airlines, and today I serve as director of Diverse Segment Marketing, where I focus on enhancing services, support, and outreach to American’s loyal LGBT, African American, Hispanic, and women customers, among other diverse populations.

My career at American has defined what corporate values and diversity leadership mean to me. I can’t speak for all 80,000 of my co-workers, but I can say why I believe diversity in the workplace is a journey that advances the opportunities for all to be successful.

Let me quote from Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, who once defined what makes a company great. “Executives spend too much time drafting, wordsmithing, and redrafting vision statements, mission statements, values statements, purpose statements, aspiration statements, and so on. They spend nowhere near enough time trying to align their organizations with the values and visions already in place.”

In my work helping to design diverse segment marketing strategies, we tell a more complete story to all customers about our welcome that is authentic and meaningful. There is no question that it helps us to be a much stronger contender as a world-class marketing organization during this very difficult economy. We know our customers consider service, value, convenience, and comfort when they pick an airline. In a very competitive market, we have learned that many appreciate inclusion and equal respect too.

What do Americans think? This week, a national workplace survey commissioned by Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, and conducted by Harris Interactive with Witeck-Combs Communications, asked heterosexual Americans their beliefs about fair workplace treatment.

When asked generally about all workplaces in America, 86 percent of all heterosexual adults agree that how an employee does his or her job should be the standard for judging an employee, not their sexual orientation, compared with 79 percent in a similar survey conducted in June 2008.

Although a strong majority agrees with this general standard, corporate workspaces still have to catch up. For example, when asked specifically about conditions where they go to work every day, 52 percent of all heterosexual adults and 57 percent of LGBT adults say that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are treated fairly and equally in their workplace. That's an increase from the past year when 42 percent of heterosexual adults and 48 percent of LGBT adults said they were treated fairly in their workplaces.