Nathelyne Archie Kennedy has six words to describe her 50-year long career: “Don’t be afraid to venture out.”
Kennedy risked majoring in engineering in 1950s Texas, when it was a safe bet to teach. As a new college graduate in 1959, when offers weren’t coming in as quickly as she had expected, Kennedy ventured beyond her immediate boundary in Texas and moved to Chicago, where she landed her first job. Two decades on, while most women-of-color entrepreneurs were still starting small retail businesses, she became the face of a new, growth business in the early 1980s.
Over the last twenty-eight years Kennedy has made an art of finding and keeping talent at her Houston-based civil and structural consulting engineering firm. A household name in design for its contributions to many of Houston’s most visible landmarks, Nathelyne A. Kennedy & Associates is a top player in large-scale, major public-works projects. These include the Reliant Stadium, where the Houston Texans play football and famous rodeos are hosted, Astros Minute Maid Park (dubbed one of America’s best ballparks), Metro’s Light Rail System and the George Bush Intercontinental Airport $45- million air-cargo expansion.
Kennedy credits her success to a mix of business astuteness, the ability to hire and retain top talent, and staying informed.
“ I read the Houston Chronicle from cover to cover every day,” she says, “because it’s important to know what’s going on in the county, the city and the state. It’s important to be involved politically, participate in professional associations with other engineers, and to be involved in the community. The more you are involved the more people remember you.”
That insight is what Kennedy, one of a new generation of women-of-color entrepreneurs who started engineering firms in the 1980s, applies to her business, which employs about 20 people and generates close to $4 million in annual revenue.
“How do you measure success?” I ask. Kennedy pauses for a second.
“When the community I live and work in is complimentary of my company and me that’s success,” she says, adding, “It’s just as important as when [NAK] employees say good things about the company. It’s also about being able to make some money.”
In 2006—the year minority women owned about 2.4 million companies, employed 1.6 million people and generated a total of $230 billion in sales—Kennedy was recognized by the city of Houston’s mayor, Bill White, as a “prime contractor for major, public projects based on its excellent performance.” Kennedy is a leader in Texas’ small-, minority- and women-owned business community.
Michelle K. Swayzer, a 1980 Prairie View alumna, says, “I first met her more than 10 years ago when I started a small engineering firm,” she says. “Mrs. Kennedy was one of the business mentors I had through the City of Houston Mentor/protégé program. We’d talk on a regular basis about the trade and, about what was going on in our communities. She’d give me insights on how to help the company grow.”
Swayzer has seen her proprietorship grow into an eight-person firm since she established her business in 1995. The company provides design/construction services for mechanical, electrical as well as telecommunication projects.
“My door has always been open,” Kennedy says, “I’ve been helping other entrepreneurs since I’ve been in business in 1982.”
In recognition of her unstinting support for engineering professionals and entrepreneurs and her commitment to her alma meter, Prairie View University dedicated a three-story, 105,000 square foot building as the Nathelyne Archie Kennedy School of Architecture during the college’s homecoming in 2006.
"The building is a splendid space,” Kennedy says. “Michael Rotondi's exposed skeleton concept is perfect for inspiring architecture students. And I'm glad the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture will be housed in it as well."
Kennedy has come a long way. Born in Richards, Texas, Kennedy was an architectural engineering senior at Prairie View A&M University, when A Raisin in the Sun became the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director on Broadway. The experiences in Lorraine Hansberry’s play were a reflection of Kennedy’s real experiences as a new black female graduate in 1950s Texas, when female engineers were a rarity.
Ten years before she graduated, 0.3 percent of all engineers in the United States were women. Over the next forty years, the rate of increase was astonishing. By 1983, the proportion was up 5.8 percent. By the end of the millennium, after engineering colleges had spent millions of dollars making special efforts to woo and retain women students, the figure had almost doubled, to 10.6 percent. Kennedy predicts the trend will only increase in the coming years.
How does the first-generation role model see second-generation entrepreneurs? I ask.
“America’s technology-driven development will bring new opportunities, says the soft-spoken 69-year-old trailblazer. “It’s impossible to imagine the improvements that will come in the future.”
