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Awards & Lists
Leaders Who Drive Innovation in Industry, Government, and Academia
The 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology, Class of 2004, chosen by USBE&IT and Blackmoney.com, make up a diverse group whose executive reach spreads right across the landscape of America's most creative enterprises. We actually picked 51, but who's counting?
If the "50's" titles are impressive, the organizations they lead are equally impressive: They represent the mainstream of public communications, media and industrial enterprises, critically important educational resources, and cutting-edge research.
THE 50 MOST IMPORTANT AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN TECHNOLOGY, 2004:
Rodney C. Adkins, General Manager, Pervasive Computing, IBM Corporation
Somers, N.Y.
Bobby Bradley, Group Senior Vice President and Group Manager, Computer Systems Technology Group, SAIC
Huntsville, Ala.
Ursula M. Burns, Senior Vice President and President - Business Group Operations, Xerox Corporation
Stamford, Ct.
Dr. George Campbell Jr., President, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
New York, N.Y.
Dr. Marvin P. Carroll, President and CEO, Tec-Masters, Inc.
Huntsville, Ala.
Sherita T. Ceasar, Vice President and General Manager, SciCare Broadband Services, Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
Lawrenceville, Ga.
Dr. Phillip L. Clay, Chancellor, Massachsetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Mass.
Roy L. Clay Sr., CEO, Rod-L Electronics, Inc.
Menlo Park, Calif.
Joseph R. Cleveland, CIO, Lockheed Martin Corporation; President, Lockheed Martin Enterprise Information Systems
Bethesda, Md.
Angeline M. Clinton, Vice President - Information Technology, Duke Power
Charlotte, N.C.
H. James Dallas, Vice President and CIO, Georgia-Pacific Corporation
Atlanta, Ga.
Martin B. Davis, Corporate CIO and Executive Vice President, Wachovia Corporation
Charlotte, N.C.
Dr. Mark E. Dean, Vice President Storage Technology and IBM Fellow, IBM Corporation
Tucson, Ariz.
Samuel Dickens, CEO, Premier Circuit Assembly, Inc.
Spring Hope, N.C.
Lt. Gen. Albert J. Edmonds (U.S.A.F., Ret.), President, Government Solutions, EDS
Plano, Texas
Monte Ford, Senior Vice President and CIO, American Airlines, Inc.
Dallas, Texas
Dixie Garr, Vice President of Customer Success Engineering, Cisco Systems, Inc.
San Jose, Calif.
Kim Goodman, Vice President of Marketing, Dell Americas, Public Sector
Round Rock, Texas
Frederick M. Green, President and CEO, Ault Incorporated
Minneapolis, Minn.
Frederick D. Gregory, Deputy Administrator, NASA
Washington, D.C.
Dr. John H. Hopps Jr., Deputy Director of Defense Research & Engineering and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Laboratory and Basic Science), U.S. Department of Defense
Arlington, Va.
Rodney P. Hunt, President and CEO, RS Information Systems, Inc.
Mclean, Va.
Dr. Keith H. Jackson, President, National Society of Black Physicists
Arlington, Va.
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute
Troy, N.Y.
Arthur E. Johnson, Senior Vice President Corporate Strategic Development, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Bethesda, Md.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Democratic Member, House Committee on Science Subcommittee on Research
Washington, D.C.
Willie F. Johnson, Chairman, PRWT Services, Inc.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Eric Kelly, President and CEO, Snap Appliance, Inc.
San Jose, Calif.
Jim Nanton, CIO, Sara Lee Branded Apparel
Winston-Salem, N.C.
E. Kenneth Nwabueze, CEO, SageMetrics Corporation
North Hollywood, Calif.
Rodney O'Neal, President, Dynamics, Propulsion, and Thermal, Delphi Corporation
Troy, Mich.
Lt. Gen. Emmett Paige Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.), Vice President, Operations - Department of Defense/Intelligence Services, Lockheed Martin Information Technology
Bethesda, Md.
Vallerie Parrish-Porter, Vice President, Group Information Officer, Hewlett-Packard Company
Palo Alto, Ca.
Richard D. Parsons, Chairman and CEO, Time Warner Inc.
New York, N.Y.
Stephen A. Perry, Administrator, U.S. General Services Administration
Washington, D.C.
Myrtle S. Potter, Executive Vice President - Commercial Operations and COO, Genentech, Inc.
South San Francisco, Calif.
Noah A. Samara, Chairman and CEO, WorldSpace Corporation
Washington, D.C.
Gale Sayers, CEO, Sayers
Mt. Prospect, Ill.
Dr. Ernest Simo, Senior Executive, Space 2000, CDMA Online
Washington, D.C.
Chuck Smith, President and CEO - SBC West, SBC Communications Inc.
San Antonio, Texas
David L. Steward, CEO, World Wide Technology, Inc.
St. Louis, Mo.
Dr. Lydia W. Thomas, President, Mitretek Systems, Inc.
Falls Church, Va.
John W. Thompson, Chairman and CEO, Symantec Corporation
Cupertino, Calif.
Philip S. Thompson, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Technology Group, IBM Corporation
Somers, N.Y.
Maurice B. Tosé, Chairman, CEO, and President, TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
Annapolis, Md.
Lloyd G. Trotter, President and CEO, GE Industrial Systems
Plainville, Ct.
John Watkins Jr., Senior Vice President and CIO, Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation
South Portland, Maine
Rayford Wilkins Jr., Group President - SBC Marketing and Sales, SBC Communications Inc.
San Antonio, Texas
Thurmond B. Woodard, Chief Ethics Officer and Vice President - Global Diversity, Dell Inc.
Round Rock, Texas
Dr. Dhyana Ziegler, Assistant Vice President for Instructional Technology, Florida A&M University
Tallahassee, Fla.
Alfred Zollar, General Manager, eServer iSeries, IBM Corporation
Somers, N.Y.
--
Take the CEOs: Richard D. Parsons is chairman and chief executive officer of media and online giant Time Warner Inc., a company that reaches more online subscribers than any other in the world, produces movies, runs cable TV networks, and publishes books and music.
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| Richard D. Parsons |
Parsons, a New York lawyer and former head of the Dime Bank, joined Time Warner before it merged with America Online, and Parsons' corporate savvy and connections ensured he could survive what The Wall Street Journal reporters and others were sure would be a publishing industry massacre. It surprised many, but the staid, old-media part of the merged enterprise turned out to be better managed and better positioned, and Parsons emerged to take control. Granville T. Woods, whose inventions and business acumen gave Thomas Edison a run for his money, would be proud of him.
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| Lydia W. Thomas, Ph.D. |
Lydia W. Thomas, Ph.D., the 2003 Black Engineer of the Year, joined the famed MITRE Corporation after studying zoology at Howard and microbiology at American University, then taking her Ph.D. in cell biology at Howard. At MITRE, and now at Mitretek Systems, Inc., a biologist among an army of electrical engineers, she brought a unique perspective that produced programs that became a beacon for the nation in energy and environmental protection, public safety and health, and national security. And after 9/11, that last area became critical: President George W. Bush named her to the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Bigger than Big
Rodney O'Neal is not a CEO, but in his role as president of the Dynamics, Propulsion and Thermal sector of Delphi Corp., the world's biggest auto parts supplier, he affects the lives of everyone. O'Neal, who worked his way through GM Tech Institute (Kettering University) with Saturn's David Whittaker, played a critical part in the decision to take Delphi, once a GM subsidiary, independent. His citation as 2002 Black Engineer of the Year noted that he commands 103,000 workers and that his division makes parts for the world's major automakers.
At Xerox Corporation, another of America's blue-chip companies, Ursula M. Burns is president of Business Group Operations, running a $12.5-billion organization spanning five business groups: Production, Office, Supplies, Worldwide Manufacturing and Supply Chain Services, and Xerox Engineering Center. Burns, a 1980 graduate of the Polytechnic Institute of New York and a master of science in mechanical engineering from Columbia, joined Xerox as a summer intern nearly a quarter-century ago and steadily climbed the ladder in Stamford, Ct. to corporate senior VP status.
She serves on the boards of PQ Corporation, Banta Corp., Boston Scientific Corp., FIRST, the National Association of Manufacturers, the University of Rochester, and the Rochester Business Alliance. Last year, Fortune magazine ranked Burns No. 28 of America's 50 Most Powerful Black Executives.
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| Arthur E. Johnson |
Lockheed Martin's Arthur E. Johnson brings similar throw weight to the technology wars. Johnson, the 1997 Black Engineer of the Year, worked his way up the ladder to head IBM Federal Systems before it was merged twice, to Loral Corporation in 1994 and to Lockheed two years later. He ended up a Loral Group VP then wound up running the Federal Systems Division, before moving up to president and CEO of the Information and Services Sector, a $7-billion operation. Now he's senior VP for corporate strategic development.
Quiet Movers & Shakers
Other CEOs in this group may be less well-known, but their combined expertise, drive, and entrepreneurial zeal is enough to shatter stereotypical notions that Blacks cannot compete in high-technology.
Rodney P. Hunt won a 2002 Black Engineer of the Year Award for the magic he performed in taking RS Information Systems, Inc. from a startup with $5,000 in working capital to a $140-million company in less than a decade, with 1,200 employees -- 60 percent minorities, women, and veterans. And he has commitments for three-quarters of a billion dollars in new business. Observers in the Fortune 500 camp could be excused for being taken unawares, but they might have looked beyond his background as a professional baseball player to Hunt's record as a 14-year-old tycoon, growing a lawn business into a 100-teen, $125,000 enterprise.
Eric Kelly heads Snap Appliance, Inc. Don't mistake it for a company making hand tools, for Snap Appliance's tools keep a lot of corporate computer networks from losing critical data, day after day. Snap Servers, a premier Network Attached Storage product, make the backups and provide the reliability that keep CIOs from losing their hair and their heads when something goes wrong with the computer networks we all depend on.
E. Kenneth Nwabueze founded SageMetrics Corporation seven years ago, after building data warehouse and data-mining systems for Disney Interactive, NBC, and Buena Vista Pictures and Television. He had worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, too, and was named to President Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology two years ago, along with Michael Dell, Intel Corp.'s Gordon Moore, former Lockheed Martin Chair Norman Augustine, and the president of MIT, Charles Vest.
Silicon History-maker
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| Roy L. Clay Sr |
Speaking of pioneers, Roy L. Clay Sr., now CEO of Rod-L Electronics, Inc., Menlo Park, Calif., was a key figure in the development of Silicon Valley and was inducted into the Valley's Hall of Fame this year. Before the microcomputer became king, Clay worked at Hewlett-Packard Company with Tom Perkins on early small computers. When Perkins left to found the quintessential Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, he selected Clay as the computer consultant for prospective investments in startup companies, among which were Tandem Computers, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Intel.
Clay himself had played a major role in the development of Hewlett-Packard's computer division and led the team that engineered HP's first foray into the computer market in 1966. Not only was he the director for the HP Research and Development Computer Group in those days, he developed the software for HP's historic 2116A computer.
Still another hotshot is Lloyd G. Trotter, head of GE Industrial Systems, a $5.2-billion global producer of control and distribution systems for the electrical power industry. Trotter is the boss of 40,000 workers scattered in 96 facilities around the world, and he has broadened the reach of one of America's blue-chip companies into international markets.
Look closely at the industrial infrastructure that supports the Computer Revolution, and you'll see companies like Ault Incorporated, whose president and CEO, Frederick M. Green, has, over the past two decades, led it to the front rank in the $2.7-billion world competition to sell external power supplies. A University of Minnesota grad who took his M.B.A. at the University of St. Thomas, Green is an alumnus of Control Data and Honeywell International Inc.
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| John W. Thompson |
John W. Thompson is another CEO whose products are essential to the continued health of computer networks. Joining Symantec Corp. four years ago, Thompson has transformed the company from a front-running publisher of consumer software to the global leader in Internet security solutions for individuals and enterprises. In 2002, President George W. Bush named Thompson to the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee, to make recommendations on how to keep the critical infrastructure of this country safe.
Moving the Ball in Business
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| Gale Sayers |
Another professional athlete in the group is Gale Sayers, who made the Hall of Fame running a football for the Chicago Bears. After his athletic star turn, Sayers went back to pick up a bachelor's degree at his alma mater, Kansas, then a master's in educational administration. He had a stint as athletic director at Southern Illinois University, then launched a sports marketing firm in Chicago. Still pushing the envelope, Sayers and his wife launched a computer reselling/systems integration firm, and 15 years later Sayers was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Today, his company, Sayers, is a national technology solutions provider with offices across the country.
Chuck Smith made CEO the old-fashioned way: climbing the ranks of an existing company. Smith's 36-year career at Baby Bell SBC West began in 1967, when he graduated from Cal State L.A., and he never looked back. Moving through human resources, operations, and marketing during the turbulent era of telecommunications deregulation and the breakup of AT&T, Smith stayed the course and made it to the top of the 48,000-worker SBC affiliate. He is vice chair of the University of Southern California's Center for Telecommunications Management as well as the fourth Alfred North Whitehead Distinguished Lecturer in Lifelong Learning at the University of the Redlands, among other accomplishments.
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| Maurice B. Tosé |
Maurice B. Tosé's TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. provides wireless messaging and location solutions to telecommunications providers such as Smith's company, and it has a lock on contracts to supply U.S. military forces with wireless communications gear for the field.
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| Dr. Marvin P. Carroll |
Dr. Marvin P. Carroll is chairman of Tec-Masters, Inc., in Huntsville, Ala. Tec-Masters has eight areas of concentration as an SBA Small Business Innovative Research grant recipient company: defense, space, automotive and transportation, multimedia, voice over IP, information technologies, applications software, and local services. Tec-Masters does everything from creating technical documentation for major weapons systems such as the Army's Multiple Launch Rocket System to creating applications for global positioning system satellite navigation.
Ethiopian Innovator
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| Noah A. Samara |
Noah A. Samara exemplifies the advantages gained when America opens its doors to immigrants. Born in Ethiopia in 1956 and raised there and in Tanzania, Samara earned a doctor of jurisprudence from Georgetown Law School. Work on regulatory matters in communications led him to found WorldSpace Corporation, a company using a new, satellite-based infrastructure to deliver broadcast radio programming to the three-quarters of the world's population that lacks adequate radio reception. Samara's company began service to Africa in 1999 and to Asia the next year. Now, it expects to start service to Latin America in 2004.
In addition to being the innovator of XM Satellite Radio for emerging markets, Samara has been a leader in bringing this new medium to the U.S. He led the effort to win the FCC's auction of S-band frequencies for this service, personally hired the top tier of XM executives, negotiated contacts for the manufacture of XM's space gear, and oversaw the development of the company's business plan. XM now offers up to 100 channels of digital satellite radio to mobile users, coast to coast. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ.
On the hardware side is Samuel Dickens, CEO of Premier Circuit Assembly, Inc., a major ISO-9000 producer of data cabling, wiring harnesses, and mechanical assemblies in Spring Hope, N.C., and Texas. Lewis Latimer, who wired the cities of New York, London, Toronto, Philadelphia, and Baltimore for the Edison Electric Co., as well as helping Alexander Graham Bell establish the central office telephone system, would understand this company implicitly.
Prepping a Tech Work Force
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| Willie F. Johnson |
Willie F. Johnson provides training to produce the work force everyone else needs. Johnson, founding partner of PRWT Services and chairman of PRWT Holding Co., sits at the helm of a multimillion-dollar technology job-training enterprise, helping inner-city dwellers work their way into paying positions in the private sector. He had managed a $120-million budget and 385 staffers delivering vocational, educational, and employment services to 36,000 Philadelphians, before moving into entrepreneurship as CEO of Fidelity Systems, Inc., a cable/line construction company.
At Fidelity, he learned about the latest communications technologies, about technology consulting and contract management. He put that to good use at PRWT, now one of the 100 largest African-American-owned companies in the nation, with offices in Philadelphia, L.A., Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco.
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| David L Steward |
Rounding out the group is David L. Steward, who founded World Wide Technology, Inc., in St. Louis with four people and 4,000 square feet of office space in 1990, to sell computer hardware, software, and services to the federal government. Now, the company has more than 400 workers, uses 900,000 square feet of facilities, and sells more than $700 million worth of equipment and services a year, helping customers build and deploy IT networks.
Information Honchos
Next up are the chief information officers, and they are a brainy lot, too.
Vallerie Parrish-Porter, 2003 Women of Color Technologist of the Year, is vice president, group information officer of Hewlett-Packard Company, the legendary industry leader that started in a garage in what now is Silicon Valley. The company succeeded in buying another pioneering company, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Parrish-Porter's difficult challenge has been to merge the databases, computer systems, and management cultures of two totally different companies into a seamless new entity.
James Nanton faces a less daunting landscape at Sara Lee Branded Apparel, but managing data networks in the fast-moving consumer textiles industry keeps him on his toes. He represents Branded Apparel on the parent corporation's Enterprise Information Technology Board, speaking for Hanes, Champion, Playtex, Bali, and L'eggs product lines. The former Citigroup systems VP has three decades' experience in banking and manufacturing.
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| John Watkins Jr. |
Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. is yet another pioneering technology company. It brought out the first commercial semiconductors, and John Watkins Jr., senior vice president and CIO, working in Portland, Maine, knows it. His more than 35 years' experience in the IT industry spans time in the Army -- He wore general's stars -- and time as head of the Defense Systems Agency, commander of the Information Systems Engineering Command, and chief of the Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Staff, before moving full speed ahead into the civilian world. Watkins began as CIO of United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney division in 1995, then moved over to Fairchild three years ago.
Joseph R. Cleveland is CIO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the largest military aerospace contractor. Cleveland, a 1996 Black Engineer of the Year for Career Achievement, now is responsible for formulating the IT vision and strategy, consolidating IT resources, implementing e-commerce initiatives, and supporting the different business units. As president of Lockheed Martin Enterprise Information Systems, Cleveland also oversees all internal IT operations and services across the $26-billion corporation. Another survivor of a merger, between Lockheed and Martin Marietta, Cleveland had been vice president and general manager of Martin Marietta Internal Information Systems. So he knows the difficulty of merging disparate operations. He began his career with General Electric Company.
Cross-Industry Careers
Former banker Monte Ford is senior vice president and CIO of American Airlines, Inc., with broad responsibility for the company's information systems organization, all Internet activities, decision support and operations research. He came to the company from the Associates First Capital Corporation, where he was executive VP and CIO. He had previously worked at the Bank of Boston, which recruited him from Digital Equipment Corp.
H. James Dallas deals with construction logistics as CIO of Georgia-Pacific Corp. He's climbed from cost accountant in the Gypsum Division to programmer, then analyst, then a manager in the Transportation Division, then up a steady series of steps in the leadership of Information Technology planning and operations.
Another banker is Martin B. Davis, corporate chief information officer and executive vice president of Wachovia Corporation. The B.A. in business administration from Winston-Salem State University rose through a succession of management jobs to be senior technology officer for Wealth Management before becoming CIO of Commercial Technology and finally CIO of the whole corporation. He's a graduate of the Young Executives Institute and the Executive Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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| Angeline M. Clinton |
Angeline M. Clinton is not a CIO, but, as vice president of IT for Duke Power, one of the nation's largest electric utilities, she reports directly to the CIO as the leader of the Information Technology Department. Clinton, a B.Sc. in business management from Limestone College in South Carolina, has been with Duke Power since 1977. She started in the Engineering, Construction and Operations Department, and joined a team implementing a new financial management system. She moved to the Customer Services Group and rose to facilities manager before moving upward. She is on the Board of Visitors for Queens University in Charlotte and is active in the American Association of Blacks in Energy.
Giant Steps on Campus
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| Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D. |
Three educators stand out: Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., the first Black woman Ph.D. out of MIT and the first Black person on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was the 2001 Black Engineer of the Year. She heads Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation's oldest private engineering school.
George Campbell Jr., Ph.D., who served for 11 years as president of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME, Inc.), is president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York.
Phillip L. Clay, Ph.D. is chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the institution's two top academic officers. Dr. Clay has oversight of graduate and undergrad education, student life, student services, research policy, strategic planning, campus development, international initiatives, and the management of large-scale partnerships.
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| Dhyana Ziegler, Ph.D |
Dhyana Ziegler, Ph.D., assistant vice president for instructional technology at Florida A&M University, also is pushing onto the front rank.
In addition to supervising instructional technology, Dr. Ziegler, the Garth Reeves Eminent Scholar in Journalism, hosts a syndicated radio program, "Delta See Connection," funded by the National Science Foundation and produced by WOL Radio in partnership with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Delta Research and Educational Foundation.
Broadcast weekly, the show, hosted by Dr. Ziegler with a closing commentary by AAAS' Dr. Shirley Malcom, features African Americans in science, engineering, and math, and is heard on Black college and university and commercial stations in African-American markets and on the Web.
Research at the Pinnacle
Keith H. Jackson, Ph.D., is president of the National Society of Black Physicists in Washington, D.C., extending the legacy of forerunners such as the late Howard University physicist Dr. Herman Branson, a Naval Research Laboratory standout. As the students like to say, "Physics is the science that drives engineering." Dr. Jackson, a Morehouse man, also is associate director of the Center for X-Ray Optics, Material Science Division, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Earlier, he was a member of the technical staff for Rockwell's Rocketdyne Division.
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| John H. Hopps Jr., Ph.D. |
Also in D.C., John H. Hopps Jr., Ph.D., is deputy director of Defense Research & Engineering and deputy undersecretary of defense for Laboratory and Basic Science in Arlington, Va. He oversees DoD laboratories and university-based DoD research, as well as instrumentation, grad fellowships, and education programs. He has added responsibility for technical cooperation between the U.S. and its allies.
Frederick D. Gregory, another Black Engineer of the Year awardee, is a former astronaut and current deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is the agency's chief operating officer and reports directly to the administrator. Gregory, a retired Air Force colonel, was a test pilot before going into space and logging 455 hours in the Shuttle.
Brainy Purchaser
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| Stephen A. Perry |
Stephen A. Perry, a retired business executive, is administrator of the General Services Administration in Washington. Perry, who spent 37 years working for Timken Co., the large maker of bearings and alloy steels, worked his way up from the stockroom to the executive suite. Now he heads the agency that does procurement and management for all federal properties, agencies, laboratories, and activities, in technology and in more mundane areas.
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| Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX 30th) |
U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson sits on the congressional panels that fund purchases by Perry and every other federal administrator. The 11-year veteran congresswoman, the first Black to represent Dallas, is ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Research. She also is Democratic Deputy Whip and immediate past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Her leadership on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure helped make Dallas-Fort Worth one of the country's fastest-growing business areas, and she also is a prime mover in aviation and transportation security.
Pervasive Leadership
IBM Corporation's Rodney C. Adkins is a prime mover of another kind. As general manager of the Pervasive Computing Division, he leads initiatives to extend e-business to a new generation of digital devices. Pervasive Computing is a cross-IBM initiative, including wireless, Web portals, voice, embedded software, and hardware technologies. Adkins, whose excellence has been recognized with a Black Engineer of the Year citation, is a member of IBM's Worldwide Management Council, the Board of Governors for IBM's Academy of Technology, and is cochair of both IBM's Multicultural People in Technology and National Black Family Technology Awareness initiatives.
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| Mark E. Dean Ph.D |
Adkins' colleague Mark E. Dean, Ph.D., the 2000 Black Engineer of the Year, was the engineer who set the architecture for personal computers with the original IBM PC and PC AT in the early 1980s. Today, he is one of 50 IBMers -- out of a quarter-million -- to be an IBM Fellow, the company's highest technical honor. He now works to develop next-generation hardware and software systems for products ranging from Pervasive Computing to supercomputers. Dr. Dean, holder of more than 30 patents, is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
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| Al Zollar |
Still another IBM standout, Al Zollar, is general manager of eServer iSeries, responsible for cross-server offerings for mid-market customers that represent all of the company's 1,500 biggest customers. Zollar, a Black Engineer of the Year honoree and former general manager of Lotus, has moved around the company, beginning as a systems engineer trainee in San Francisco in 1977 and climbing to general manager of the Network Computing Software Division, responsible for key Internet infrastructure technologies, including networking, security, and Java technologies, before moving to head Lotus and then to his present position.
Broadband Reach
Another Black Engineer of the Year honoree and the 2001 Women of Color Technologist of the Year, Sherita T. Ceasar, is vice president and general manager of SciCare Broadband Services for Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. She has profit-and-loss responsibility for her division and manages business development, marketing, broadband consultative services, and the training organization of Scientific-Atlanta Institute. Hired away from her position as director of manufacturing for the North America Subscriber Paging Division of Motorola, Inc., Ceasar led quality-control initiatives and ramped up manufacturing for Scientific-Atlanta, before assuming her current post. Ceasar has more than 200 successful commercial launches to her credit, helping to create the broadband technology that lets families and individuals browse the Web, exchange e-mail, buy and sell products, and talk on the phone through their TV sets.
Kim Goodman is vice president of Marketing for Dell Americas, Public Sector, leading an organization that sells computers and networking gear to the K-12 education, higher education, health care, and federal, state, and local government markets. Goodman, an honors M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, has an M.Sc. in industrial engineering from Stanford as well as a bachelor's in political science. Last year, she was named one of Fortune's 50 Most Powerful African-American Executives.
Connecting with Power
Albert J. Edmonds worked an entire career in the public sector before retiring as a lieutenant general from the Air Force. He now is president of the Government Solutions Division of EDS. When he was named 1996 Black Engineer of the Year, he headed the Defense Information Systems Agency, which ran White House communications, satellite, optical-fiber, and data communications programs for the four military services, as well as Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster communications with state and local governments.
Cisco Systems, Inc. is one of the companies making those communications possible, and Dixie Garr, vice president of Customer Success Engineering, helps make it happen. Garr, a Grambling State University grad, summa cum laude, and Hughes Aircraft Fellow in electrical engineering and computer science at UCLA, also is a 2002 alumna of Stanford's Executive Business Program. At Texas Instruments Inc., Garr and a colleague won a patent for the Advanced Productivity Tool, an object-oriented computer-aided software engineering tool for factory control, a pioneering effort to bring computer efficiencies to manufacturing, winning her the Black Engineer of the Year Award for Professional Achievement in Industry.
Pioneer Precursor
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| Dr. Ernest Simo |
Dr. Ernest Simo, senior executive for Space 2000, has helped, since the mid-1980s, to develop the key technologies making the Information Superhighway a reality. He worked with Hughes Network Systems to develop Very Small Aperture Terminal satellite communications, now ubiquitous at gas stations, banks, lotto terminals, and other computerized point-of-sale outlets, among other uses. He also helped Motorola, Lucent Technologies, Samsung, Nokia, Bell Canada, and Verizon in the development and optimization of CDMA-based wireless telephony systems. Dr. Simo has trained more than 10,000 executives, managers, and engineers the world over, and now is helping U.S. companies launch the next-generation wireless communication systems.
Bobby Bradley is Group Senior Vice President and Group Manager for Computer Systems Technology (CST) at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). Headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., the group provides information technology and programmatic, engineering, and logistics solutions to the Department of Defense and civilian agencies throughout the U.S. and overseas. She founded CST, which had nearly 1,000 employees when it merged with SAIC.
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| Lt. Gen Emmett Paige Jr. |
Lt. Gen. Emmett Paige Jr., an Army retiree, also provides services to government agencies as vice president of Department of Defense Operations and Intelligence Services for Lockheed Martin Information Technology. Lt. Gen. Paige, a former assistant secretary of defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, and former chief of the Army's Information Systems Command, created the largest communication system ever installed in a combat environment, in Southeast Asia. Lt. Gen. Paige, yet another Black Engineer of the Year honoree, also headed OAO Corporation, before moving to his present post.
Marketers to the Fore
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| Myrtle Potter |
Myrtle S. Potter works on the other end of the high-tech revolution, as executive vice president of Commercial Operations and chief operating officer of Genentech, Inc. Potter leads the Sales, Marketing, Managed Care, Business Development, Commercial Development, Decision Support, and Commercial Innovation functions. She formerly was president of Bristol-Myers Squibb's U.S. Cardiovascular Metabolics Division.
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| Phil Thompson |
Another sales leader is Philip S. Thompson, vice president of Sales and Marketing for IBM's Technology Group, responsible for developing IBM's Engineering & Technology Services and microelectronics businesses. Earlier, he was vice president for Business Transformation and CIO.
Still another technology marketer is Rayford Wilkins Jr., group president, SBC Marketing and Sales, SBC Communications, Inc., the giant Baby Bell, in San Antonio, Texas. Wilkins was one of Fortune magazine's 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in 2002.
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| Thurmond Woodard |
Thurmond B. Woodard serves as chief ethics officer and vice president, Global Diversity, at Dell Inc., in Round Rock, Texas. During his 30-year career in finance, marketing, and human resources, Woodard worked in Europe for Johnson Wax and in Australia for Flexel Inc., and has served as president and COO for Atlanta-based R. Thomas Consulting and Training, where he coached and advised CEOs and other senior executives on how to formulate and implement policies on diversity. At Dell, he directs diversity initiatives and oversees the Business Conduct Office.
To read more about The 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology see The 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology in the USBE News archive.
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A virtual spokesperson for black technology, BlackEngineer aspires to serve as leading news and information provider on the advancements in black technology with deep insights into black engineering, black entrepreneurs, black education, and historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). In fact, BlackEngineer is one of the very few to promote the achievements of black technology. The Black engineer of the year awards (BEYA) is one of our successful ventures to promote black technology, progress and achievements made in black technology, and the sentiments of the Black community in the US, the UK, Caribbean, and Africa.
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Black technology entrepreneurs are increasingly providing the horsepower that drives the global economy. Over the last two decades, black entrepreneurs have created more jobs, and contributed much more to the economic expansion of the Black community as a whole, than any black pastor or politician. Black entrepreneurs are taking risks and building businesses that generate economic growth and increase prosperity in underserved areas, as more minority-owned and minority-focused businesses emerge, willing to serve the financial needs of Black entrepreneurs. US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine's annual list of Top Black Technology Entrepreneurs reflects the expanding scope of leading Black entrepreneurs in information technology, homeland security, and defense.
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