What does Daikin do?

Daikin is the world’s largest air conditioning manufacturer. We employ almost 100,000 employees globally, and we have over 10,000 team members in the Greater Houston area.

Why did Daikin choose to open Daikin Texas Technology Park (DTTP) in Waller?

Daikin has a philosophy of creating manufacturing sites near where the business is located. Our original company was founded in Houston, and Waller made sense because we needed a big footprint for our manufacturing facility. This location also provided us access to local workers and worked well logistically as it’s close to our shipping routes and customers.

Can you tell me about the program that sponsors Waller ISD kids to go to Japan? 

The Cultural Exchange Program has been around in Daikin for many, many years.

Kids that are interested in going to Japan write an essay, go through an interview process, and then they're selected by our senior leadership. Once they're selected, they get to go to Japan for 10 days to see many of the sites, understand the culture, experience the food, but also to connect with Daikin employees in Japan who really enjoy showing off their country and their culture. The kids absolutely love it, and it has really opened up their imagination and given them possibilities about where they could go in life.

Can you tell me about sponsoring the Waller High School football stadium?

That was a really exciting opportunity for us. From the very beginning, when we moved into DTTP in 2016, we started this relationship with Waller High School in small ways, and that relationship has really blossomed in all of the schools. We feel really connected to all of the things going on in Waller, and just to be a part of a place where memories happen and families come together for something like football in Texas — what better place to have your name than on a building like that?

Can you tell me about the Adopt A County Mile program? 

We've been a part of Adopt a County Mile since we moved into this facility. It goes back to Daikin’s roots of being in the community.

With that particular program, we actually involve our interns. We have a big intern program, and that's one of their core community projects that we encourage them to do when they're here. As an intern, it gives them a sense of what Daikin’s all about. To be a good Daikin team member, you need to have that volunteerism and community spirit.

We enjoy being able to partner with Precinct 4 and help keep our roads clean. 

Tell me about the snack packs you helped deliver alongside Precinct 4. 

That was actually such a fun event. I think so many of our employees enjoyed being able to participate in such an important project. We set an assembly line similar to what we have here at DTTP, and we had volunteers from all of our business units sign up to come and pack 10,000 snack packs that we were able to deliver to Precinct 4.

Precinct 4 then distributed them throughout all of the different community groups that support these after school activities. It was probably one of the most enjoyable and highly participated events that we've had with our team members.

Daikin Park is the new name of the Astros stadium starting January 1st. What do you want Astros fans to know about this change?

We are so excited about this partnership with the Houston Astros.

I'm a native Houstonian, so for me personally, it's an amazing opportunity. I'm just so thrilled. What we really want through this partnership is for people just to get to know Daikin. The Daikin name is still a little bit unknown in our community and even on the national stage. We're really hoping that people will really tune in and get to know Daikin, look us up, and figure out who we are.

But we want them to know that we are great community partners, and that we really care about the work that we do here and the contributions that we make both to society and to our communities.