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From www.blackengineer.com Awards & Lists
Entrepreneur of the Year Affirmative Action Professional Achievement in Industry Professional Achievement in Government Professional Achievement in Industry (Nonprofit) Lifetime Achievement Pioneer Award Career Achievement in Industry Career Achievement in Industry Career Achievement in Government Stanley Rogers, Ph.D. Community Service in Industry Eric R. Downey Most Promising Engineer in Government Technical Sales and Marketing Student Leadership (Graduate) Terri R. Norton Deans' Award
2005 Black Engineer of the Year First and foremost, engineers are builders. The African Imhotep, the very first engineer, set the profession's parameters by using math and physics skills to construct the Great Pyramid at Giza, still standing after thousands of years. William D. Smith, P.E. is a modern exemplar of that tradition. Smith, now president of the 120-year-old Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas engineering consulting firm, is an electrical engineer turned consummate builder. Smith, a 1965 graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, began his career as an Air Force officer, supervising the installation and maintenance of navigation aids, communications gear, and military air traffic control systems throughout the Far East. Once he returned to civilian life, the world beckoned. In short order, Smith worked for Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. and then Bechtel Corporation, flying over oceans and continents to complete a wide variety of assignments, from mining projects in Indonesia to rock quarry operations in California. Cultural Intelligence No pyramids, but Smith moved on to other giant projects. One of the first Black American engineers his overseas mining colleagues ever saw, he showed off cultural intelligence as well as technical skills. In Latin America, he mastered Spanish and learned the cultural mores, developing effective methods to break subject-area isolation, motivating teams to share information to complete shared project goals. Working with another culture, he says, "makes you realize that your way is not the only way." In a nutshell, that characterizes Smith's career. The Bechtel Years After his Air Force service and his stint at Kaiser, Smith joined Bechtel. One project during his 15 years there was a first-of-its-kind photovoltaic power-generating facility for Pacific Gas & Electric Company. His managerial acumen stood out as well as his technical skill, and his ability to lead teams in a cross-cultural environment was an added plus. At Bechtel, Smith became a member of the Directors' Advisory Group, a select group of senior-manager candidates who advised top executives on strategic issues. Smith also was part of the team that established a Chinese-American subsidiary on the Asian mainland. As if that were not enough, while at Bechtel he also completed a master's degree in management at the University of the Redlands. In 1988, Smith moved over to Parsons Brinckerhoff as chief engineer of the recently acquired FMC Power Group, and then-CEO James Lammie became Smith's longtime mentor, supporting his advancement and laying out the path to the executive team. Power Mover Smith began with power projects at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California at Davis, and Beale Air Force Base; led development of uninterruptible power for the Biosphere sealed-environment research project near Phoenix, Ariz.; then became chief electrical and mechanical engineer for the Superconducting Super Collider project at Waxahatchie, Texas. Congress canceled that project, but Smith developed a Texas-based power engineering office and became Texas area manager of PB Facilities Services. In 1996, he moved to area manager for the San Francisco and Oakland offices, with full responsibility for a technical staff serving more than 40 public-agency clients, including the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. Two years later, he became Northwest District manager of the Americas Infrastructure Company, responsible for all operations, business development, and project management activities for a 300-person, 10-office district, with territory including the U.S. Northwest, Alaska, and western Canada. Projects he oversaw included the earthquake-damaged San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span, extension of San Francisco's Muni Metro Third Street light rail line, a design-build contract with the Oregon Department of Transportation, and the I-880/Route 262 Interchange and Widening Project in Hayward, Calif. He also oversaw a contract to extend rapid transit to the San Francisco Airport. Pyramids? What pyramids? Incubating Excellence Smith also serves on the Career Development Committee, an initiative to create a culture of excellence and innovation. It makes sure employees have the tools, training and incentives to take the lead in developing and refining technologies and methodologies that benefit the firm. He is also technical director for electrical systems, setting standards for the firm's electrical and power engineers. Promoted to his present post in 2003, Smith has been a member of the advisory board of the University of California, a director of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and a major organizer of the San Francisco chapter of the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Last year, he sparked establishment of a task force to rejuvenate Parsons Brinckerhoff's commitment to working with international lending agencies on infrastructure projects in Africa and other developing lands. The task force is actively seeking opportunities to contribute to public works projects that benefit people in the developing world as well as the company's growth and corporate development objectives. That's in addition to running an operating company with 3,000 staffers handling 1,700 projects ranging in size from $50,000 to $14 billion, earning $680 million in annual revenues. Imhotep, the original builder of pyramids and other great big things, would understand.
Our Category Winners We begin the Class of 2005 with Russell T. Wright, chairman and CEO of Dimensions International, Inc., and it is fitting: Russell Wright not only is the second-generation leader of a successful graduate of the SBA 8(a) set-aside program. At 37 he is a driving entrepreneur who doubled his company's size a year after taking over the helm. In a year in which Career Communications Group, Inc., publisher of this magazine, launched a major initiative focusing on small-business ownership as the Black community's avenue to wealth, Dimensions International's story not only showed the viability of the premise; it demonstrated the power curve that arises when highly talented Black technology professionals join hands instead of standing apart. Emerging Giant DI was a $58-million firm that already was the leading provider of Internet-based, aerospace decision-support software; IT and communications systems management; and logistical support when it acquired Black-owned SENTEL Corporation, a $43-million company with leading-edge skills in test engineering, software development, electromagnetic engineering, and the networking of chemical- and biological-agent sensors for homeland security. The merger bumped the conjoined entities up to an 800-person, $120-million-plus defense contractor. Not only is the firm now stepping up to a higher level of competition in the hotly contested defense support market (Its personnel deployed with U.S. troops and ships in Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.), under Russell Wright, DI is actively looking to grow again. His Father's Apprentice Wright's father, optometrist and former SBA minority program leader Robert L. Wright, prepped his son with a 14-year apprenticeship before turning over the reins. The younger Wright, a Morehouse Man, also had extensive academic preparation. Russell Wright, a Keller Graduate School MBA, also completed a master's certificate in government contracting at George Washington University and went on to complete the Minority Business Executive Program at Dartmouth College's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration. In what was, in effect, a custom, in-house management training regime, Russell Wright worked his way through DI's operating units, becoming thoroughly familiar with how it all worked before he stepped up to CEO. Proof of that came when, as executive vice president and then CEO, he led the company to ISO-9000 certification and boosted revenues by more than $10 million. Intelligence in the Airways Dr. Dennis Rowe works for The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit research and development outfit that claws its way in the market for government services like an entrepreneurial upstart. He's a West Point grad with a distinguished career in Army intelligence who earned two master's degrees -- engineering from George Washington University, education from Boston University -- and a doctorate in engineering at George Washington. He was the first African American to go from the cadet corps directly into military intelligence and served demanding terms in Europe at the height of the Cold War. His next Army job was to test and evaluate weapons that became mainstays as U.S. forces fought in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq: The Multiple Launch Rocket System, the Patriot missile-defense set and Bradley fighting vehicle, and the Abrams main battle tank. He also implemented a coast-to-coast telecommunications test bed for a nationwide distributed network. Automating Safety In 1983, Dr. Rowe joined MITRE and plunged into cost-benefit analyses for a new air-traffic-control automation system. MITRE was developing the T-CAS collision avoidance system for airliners, and air carriers, pilots' representatives, congressional staffers, and Federal Aviation Authority personnel were waging a vociferous debate about its potential. The system, connected to a plane's onboard computer, compares radar returns with the flight path to warn pilots when a collision is imminent and suggests maneuvers to avoid it. MITRE's people won that argument. T-CAS is standard today, and many of Dr. Rowe's recommendations were implemented in the FAA's Computer Replacement Program, earning him a letter of commendation and a MITRE Program Achievement Award. Redrawing the Sky's Lines In 1987, Dr. Rowe was sent to the NATO Communications and Information Systems Agency as an expert on intelligence systems. He returned to MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development in 1992 and developed a strategic roadmap to deploy enhancements to air traffic control and management systems, then led meetings to promote agency-wide consensus on the desired outcomes. The agency used it to justify its modernization funds. Still going strong, Dr. Rowe became an expert on human interface problems. His dissertation, "Heart Rate Variability: An Aid to Determining User State in the Design and Analysis of User Interfaces," investigated how computers could be engineered to adapt to individual differences to help people better accomplish computer-mediated tasks. His contributions to the FAA High Altitude Redesign Program included a Controller Acceptability and Workability questionnaire to capture air controllers' responses to new airspace designs. To support validation, Dr. Rowe also designed a new, real-time air traffic control simulation laboratory, as well as processes and tools to evaluate complex airspace redesigns. The FAA used the results in laying out the new National Airspace System, setting design changes in seven Air Route Traffic Control Centers: Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Oakland. In a nutshell, Dr. Rowe is deep in the guts of airways management, redirecting the way aircraft will fly around the country, and the world beyond, in the 21st century. Navy Superstar When the U.S. Navy puts a billion-dollar cruiser into a man's hands, it's plain that his superiors think a lot of him. Capt. Glenn Flanagan is that man. Now at the Pentagon after a two-year cruise as commanding officer of the Aegis missile cruiser Monterrey (CG-61), Flanagan now works for the chief of Naval Operations' Surface Warfare Directorate, working out ways for ships to defend themselves against anti-ship missiles. How he got there is an interesting story in itself. Flanagan, the son of a 20-year Air Force veteran, excelled in high school, academically, and on the football field. That brought big-time college recruiters, but he chose the Naval Academy, where he starred as a defensive halfback before taking his degree in chemistry. He went to nuclear power schools in Orlando, Fla., and Ballston Spa, N.Y., and finished up at Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, R.I. Then he went to work with the Navy's elite nuclear corps, first aboard the nuclear cruiser South Carolina (CGN-37) and then the nuclear carrier Nimitz, patrolling the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Flanagan completed master's degree study at Auburn University before heading back out to sea again, as a department head on the missile frigate Halybruton (FFG-40). It went to the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. kept sea lanes open while the Iran-Iraq war thundered to its bloody conclusion. Flanagan next joined the Bureau of Naval Personnel as Surface Nuclear Assignment officer. Two years later, he shipped out again, as executive officer of the nuclear cruiser Virginia (CGN-38). Back to the Gulf again, in time to support Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Then the ship went to the Caribbean to help track down smugglers' boats and planes and haul them into reach of American law. In 1992, Flanagan went back to the Pentagon as a Manpower and Surface Warfare analyst. He attended the National War College, too, then served on the Joint Staff as a Readiness Division operations officer. Heading out to the waves again, Flanagan took command of the missile frigate Elrod (FFG 55) in 1996 and promptly sailed back to the Gulf, where his ship won awards for battle efficiency and intelligence collection. A two-year Pentagon hitch, as head of Maritime Force Protection for the chief of Naval Operations, occupied him until his next sea tour, as reactor officer aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Flanagan got his second command as skipper of the Monterrey, deploying with the George Washington Battle Group and winning more awards in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He's a surface warrior who reaches high. Look for him to keep climbing. Grounded in Design Ed Welburn is a world traveler like Capt. Flanagan, but he does his campaigning as a civilian. Welburn, who began drawing pictures of automobiles as a three-year-old, has a storybook tale told in this magazine before: Encouraged by his parents, he kept up his hobby and, after attending a 1958 auto show in Philadelphia, he wrote to General Motors Corporation expressing his desire to design cars. GM executives forwarded his letter to the design team, who took Welburn under their wing, counseling him on courses he should take in high school and telling him how to develop a portfolio that would get him into a good art program. Howard University's School of Fine Arts was Welburn's choice, and GM hired Welburn as an intern during his undergrad years. In 1972, after graduation, Welburn began as an associate designer and now is vice president of design for GM North America. He's had a direct hand in the shaping of the 1977 Buick Park Avenue; the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro; the 2003 Chevrolet SSR; and two fuel-cell concept vehicles, the 2002 AUTOnomy and the 2003 HyWire. Interestingly, letters of support for Welburn's nomination came not only from GM's chairman and CEO, G. Richard Wagoner Jr.; Vice Chairman of Product Development and Chairman of GM North America Robert A. Lutz; and Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, but also from Richard L. Rogers, president of Detroit's College of Creative Studies. Rogers, noting that international automakers hire more graduates of his school than any other institution, took care also to celebrate Howard graduate Welburn's achievements in improving the processes of developing new products and in design, and cited Welburn's continuing support of design education. Richard Koshalek, president of California's Art Center College of Design, an institution celebrated on television and credited with placing its graduates in a majority of the world's auto and product-design studios, wrote that, "Mr. Welburn's work has contributed not only stylistic changes but also technological advances in the field of automotive design. His achievements at Oldsmobile and involvement with high-performance vehicles like the Oldsmobile Aerotech, which set world records for speed, and energy efficient vehicles such as the AUTOnomy and HyWire fuel cell vehicle have resulted in an ongoing influence over the evolution of the transportation industry." We could go on, but 'nuff said there. The chief of design for a company as big as GM affects budgets and profits that determine the economic fortunes of entire communities, and Welburn, only the sixth person to hold the top design post, is an industrial leader whose style literally affects the entire world. Fellow Traveler At 34, DaimlerChrysler's Ralph Gilles is a lot younger than Welburn, but he has a similar story: Gilles, born in New York to a Haitian family, grew up admiring cars. An aunt sent his drawings to then-Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, and K. Neil Walling, the design chief, wrote back, urging Gilles to go to design school. Gilles studied engineering in Canada, but cars stayed on his mind. So he moved to Detroit and enrolled in the College of Creative Studies, graduating in 1992. Gilles came onto the scene at an opportune time. Urban youth lifestyles had already captivated Madison Avenue, but carmakers were still mystified that famous rappers wanted big SUVs. Gilles' talents and passion for car design paid off: Now he's the director of one of seven Chrysler studios, a young Black man calling the cues just as the automakers are paying attention to the styling sensibilities of the young Blacks buying up their cars. Gilles designed the interior of the Viper GTS/R, the Dodge ESX2, and the Jeep Jeepster concept cars, and was chief designer on the production 2003 Viper and Jeep Liberty. But his biggest coup was the 300C and Dodge Magnum, with special attention to the chrome accents and trim. Time called him the "King of Bling" for a car that so captured the imagination of hip-hoppers that Snoop Doggy Dogg wrote DaimlerChrysler's CEO, Dieter Zetsche, asking for one. But it's not just urban youth and their rap icons who like the design. Motor Trend magazine named it "2005 Car of the Year," saying, "Few cars we've driven have received such pan-generational, pan-cultural approval." Part of the reason may lie in the enthusiast magazines' discovery that cars have "nationality," a style that resounds in the culture that produced them, and that U.S. carmakers are rediscovering their ability to transmit American pride and sense of worth in sheet metal and glass. Ralph Gilles, young, urban, and hip, had already been inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame (2003) by the time the 300C rolled out, for his leadership and potential for the future. Looking at his work and his growing influence, we can add an "Amen" to that. Secret Scientist Something as up-front as vehicle design is easy to see. Clark Johnson works at the other end of the manufactory, figuring out how to make designed vehicles, once assembled, stay together. He's a chemist by training -- Grambling University B.Sc., University of Denver M.Sc., with an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University -- but he's as comfortable probing the engineering required to build the vehicles he works on and the physics effects that reach them once in place, as he is with the basic science with which he began. His vehicles, unlike those of car designers, must survive in the daunting environment of space. Some of Johnson's work is even harder to see; it happens under the cloak of security clearances, defense priorities, and homeland security needs. His nominators could only hint at his successes: investigation of thermal effects on the stability of sensing platforms for military surveillance and targeting of threats from orbit; bonding agents used in aerospace manufacturing; examination of how to use civilian parts and processes to meet and exceed Air Force MIL-STD requirements for spacecraft. But some of Johnson's work is highly visible. Among other things, he "was responsible for formulating, evaluating, and producing thermal protection ablative and insulative materials for application to the Space Shuttle orbiter, external tank and commercial jet aircraft engines." He worked for Lockheed Martin Corporation at the time, and later joined The Boeing Company through what used to be Hughes Space and Communications Company. Under a NASA contract, Johnson managed development, test, and qualification of the Space Shuttle Thermal Protection Tile Repair Kit material, designed to repair damaged orbiter tiles while in space, a subject that clearly has moved up in NASA's priorities since the Columbia disaster. Johnson began his Shuttle work at Rockwell International Space Division and won kudos for his work testing bond strength of the thermal tiles. Today, Johnson is a systems engineering project manager for national security programs in Boeing's Satellite Systems division. That's about as secret as you can get, but he also has worked on commercial programs such as the Space Based Infrared System program and communications satellite programs, in addition to serving on the National Research Council's committee on the Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Development and Test Program. One result of his investigations was the go-ahead for the X-33 program. A leader in his field, Johnson was elected head of the International Society for the Advancement of Materials and Processes, a prestigious engineering society, two years ago. The society had suffered a six-figure net financial loss, but Johnson led it back to financial health with his exacting, break-it-down-to-manageable-pieces approach. Much of his work may be secret, but his effects on materials science, aerospace manufacturing, and the defense industry are large enough to affect everyone. Research Reach Dr. Sandra K. Johnson is another trailblazer whose biggest successes occur out of the sight of the general public but rapidly change the way the general public does business. That's because her biggest innovations have profoundly changed the way computers work. And computers, especially the large systems that are at the heart of networks, are profoundly changing the way the U.S. and the world communicate, make and record financial transactions, and conduct activities from the mundane to the major-league. Johnson, a summa cum laude graduate of Southern University with an M.Sc. from Stanford and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rice University, joined IBM Corporation two decades ago and immediately got involved in cutting-edge projects. She was a part of the team that prototyped the Scalable Parallel Processor (SP2), the base machine for the "Deep Blue" chess championship machine. Among her skills was the ability to develop software simulators of computer architectures, permitting intensive evaluation and critiquing of prospective designs. Dr. Johnson, an expert in UNIX and its variants, also became a leader in the Java revolution, leading a technical team examining how well Java servers worked with legacy systems on IBM server platforms. In 2000, she became manager of the WebSphere Database Development Department, leading the development and delivery of WebSphere integration features into the DB2 database system, and VisualAge for Java, helping IBM drive its "seamless computing" initiative in the business-systems market. Two years ago, Dr. Johnson moved over to Linux, as IBM Linux Technology Center performance architect. There, she worked with IBM server brands and middleware teams to address common Linux performance issues, help resolve them in hardware design, work with the Linux distribution partner liaisons, and advocate for quality Linux performance in the "Open Source" community. She has a book coming out, "Linux Server Performance Tuning," to be published by Prentice-Hall this spring. Dr. Johnson has 11 issued patents with six more pending. She also has contributed chapters to three other books; produced three journal publications and an article in IEEE Parallel and Distributed Technology, Vol. 3 No. 3 (1995); presented 13 conference papers; made six technical disclosures; and authored three Web publications. She's also contributed three "other" publications, such as an IBM Redpaper on Linux, an internal report on developing and testing Java Beans, and a Computer Architecture News piece on "Unified Scalable Shared Memory Architectures." In 2002, Dr. Johnson, a 1998 National Women of Color Technology Award winner, was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology, one of only half of 1 percent of its technical staffers. She is the first Black woman to be so honored. Photonics Phenomenon Dr. Stanley Rogers has had multiple careers. All at the same time. And how he keeps them all organized in his head is anybody's guess. But he manages each one with élan. Like so many of our award winners, Dr. Rogers started at a historically Black institution, Tennessee State University. He graduated at the top of his electrical engineering class in 1985 and scored so well in ROTC the Air Force commissioned him as a "regular," a feat accomplished by only 1 percent of reserve officer training cadets each year. In uniform, he managed a $75-million set of system programs for the F-15E, the Air Force's top fighter, also handling $12 million worth of nuclear and conventional weapons programs. He left the Air Force and joined Corning Incorporated, where he worked to boost the capabilities of single- and multi-mode optical fibers in data transmission. Rogers kept his commission in the Air Force Reserve and now holds the rank of major. At the Air Force Research Laboratory, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, he's a master innovator in the use of microelectronic machines (MEMs) to control the deformation of mirrors to bypass optical hurdles in the focusing of laser beams. His technical papers say these methods control spherical aberrations and eliminate requirements for refractive corrections and beam splitters in adaptive optics, but for all our nonphotonic readers, let's just say he uses nanotechnology to make a laser beam dance every which way he wants. He even hints that this technology lets him incorporate cryptography, but it's worth noting that one of his classified papers describes a "Multifunctional Electro-Optic Defense of US Aircraft." Dance? His laser beams most certainly do, on command. Dr. Rogers completed his doctorate in electro-optical engineering at the University of Dayton and stuck around after graduation. Not only does he serve as an adjunct professor, he's the sole academic advisor for 200 undergraduate electrical engineering majors. At Wright-Patterson AFB, Dr. Rogers is a prime mover behind the Wright-STEPP Program, a multiyear, widely supported mentoring, motivation and tutoring program promoting science education for inner-city youth. And as if that were not enough, he's also a single father, a deacon, and a chorister at Dayton's Omega Baptist Church, and a leader of its singles ministry. His hobby is working on cars and boats, and he also likes camping, canoeing, and skiing, and uses that to show inner-city youth a different side of life. Power Performer Craig S. Ivey works with big machines. Huge ones, that feed the electric power distribution networks of Dominion Resources Service Company, in the Richmond, Va., area. Ivey, responsible for overall electric operations, maintenance, and control of distribution systems, including emergency planning and gas and electric metering, sets the overall philosophy and strategy of the Electric Operations organization. He represents the company to community organizations, municipal councils, and other government agencies, and he manages union/management relations. But sometimes it takes extreme adversity to show what you're really made of. Hurricane Isabel presented such a challenge in 2003, devastating Central Virginia and denying power to 1.8 million of Dominion's 2.2 million customers. The North Carolina State University graduate had worked for Virginia Power, Dominion's predecessor, and helped ensure a smooth transition to an integrated energy company through its merger with Consolidated Natural Gas Company. That prompted shifts in business strategy and corporate culture. Ivey was picked to lead the Electrical Operations group through the transformation in 2000 because of his "can-do" attitude, willingness to face new challenges, and a rapport with employees his superiors describe as "exceptional." Isabel sorely tested those leadership abilities. Eighty-one percent of any company's customer base knocked offline is devastating, to be sure. Assistance poured in from as far away as Quebec. Ivey's 3,500-strong work force ballooned to more than 12,000 employees, contractors, and assisting utility workers, striving around the clock to restore power at more than 57,000 locations spread over Dominion's 30,000-square-mile service area. Ivey handled planning, logistics, and communication with state and local officials, and motivated and supported the field crews, providing clear, consistent leadership under trying conditions. Executives called it the most severe storm in the company's 100-year history, but Ivey handled it with an aplomb and wit that many found heartening. His team even found translators from other parts of the company to team with the French-speaking Quebecois, speeding recovery. Really a Butterfly Robert Holmes Jr. also works for a utility, Birmingham's Alabama Power. His story differs in important respects, but he also has made an indelible mark. Holmes, now senior vice president for ethics and business practices for the Southern Company unit, grew up in the last years of segregation and never figured he'd rise to such authority. His parents, a domestic and a gas works laborer, demanded excellence at school and got it from Holmes and his siblings. Holmes took drafting at Alabama A&M University, graduated in 1970, and joined Alabama Power for an expected career in mechanical design. A manager not bothered by the mores of Jim Crow saw Holmes' potential and pushed to stretch his learning curve. George Howard gave Holmes assignments of increasing difficulty and responsibility, even getting him to design a bridge near a substation. Howard urged Holmes to pursue engineering, even offering to pay college tuition. Holmes, impressed, duly enrolled at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, paying his own way, and Howard got to see him graduate before he died. Holmes never forgot; he is mentor to many fellow employees today. Holmes became an expert on the massive pumps that move power plant cooling water. A disastrous plumbing failure at another company prompted him to learn more about pipe systems, though. Engineers today use piezoelectric strain gauges to detect dangerous metal fatigue from "thermal downshock" as thousands of gallons of coolant flush through steam generators. Holmes, confronting the issue for the first time, developed nondestructive testing to avert such pipe breakdowns at Alabama Power. Holmes also found a way to store dry ash on a plant site and later reclaim the site by converting it to something aesthetically appealing. His passion for mentoring and fairness with employees attracted attention, and he was booted up to executive service. In 1989, he worked as assistant to the chief financial officer and the next year was Mobile District manager. In 1991, he made history as Alabama Power's first Black vice president, in human resources. In 1995, his marriage of technical mastery and deep understanding and compassion for others prompted another move, to vice president for ethics and business practices. Six years later, he became senior vice president. Holmes' widely regarded accomplishment there was to transform ethical behavior into a process that permeates the corporate culture. Interesting rise, for a man who grew up facing daily denials of fairness in a social and political culture that was unethical in the extreme. Speed, and Then Some Sometimes a technology high-flier's achievements really do fly high. Dr. Isaiah Blankson is one whose achievements, via NASA test beds, actually get out of this world. Blankson, who earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in aeronautics and astronautics at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined NASA in 1988 after working as a research assistant in MIT's aerophysics laboratory, a senior scientist at Webster Research Center, and an aerospace scientist at General Electric Company's Schenectady Research Center. His track led to his present explorations, although his first work was for Navy users. At MIT Aerophysics Lab, Dr. Blankson investigated the vortex wake of a flexible cylinder in cross-flow, a submarine application. Then he moved to the design of magnetic balance and suspension systems for aeronautical applications, using a model suspension to conduct hypersonic cone near-wake studies at Mach 6.3. If anyone can see presaging for the "scramjet" now being tested by NASA, you're excused. Cone-wake studies continued at Lincoln Laboratories until he completed his Ph.D., then he moved to the Webster center, researching electro-gas dynamic concepts and aerodynamic and hydrodynamic problems in high-speed ink-jet printing. Research findings are usable in many areas. At GE, Dr. Blankson investigated hypervelocity plasma-armature projectile launchers, as well as more mundane applications such as a gas-dynamic design of megawatt-power circuit breakers. He also probed the gas dynamics of high-performance coatings of automobile halogen lamps in a batch reactor. At NASA, Dr. Blankson became program manager for a $28-million-a-year hypersonic research initiative. Now he's a senior scientist/technologist, a technical staff member's highest title, investigating air-breathing hypersonic technologies. These days, he investigates the electromagnetic field interactions in supersonic and hypersonic flows. That is, he's looking at use of weakly ionized gas flows to control missile flight, for rapid response. Both the Air Force and Army are interested in this, since it points to significant benefits for flow control in inlets, especially for flight regimes involving rapid maneuver at variable Mach numbers. As his summary says, "Flow control and replacement of control surfaces is intriguing for Reusable Launch Vehicles." Just to keep busy, Dr. Blankson also is investigating the potential of passive millimeter-wave imaging. Up to now, tactical imaging has used optical or infrared wavelengths, but these don't work well in bad weather. To build a day- or night-capable, adverse-weather imaging system, Dr. Blankson is looking at passive millimeter-wave sensing, a dual-use technology of interest both to the military and the Department of Homeland Security to scan for concealed contraband and weapons. Obstacle? What Obstacle? Legal segregation ended in the 1950s, but the mindset of many people had great difficulty adjusting, as the story of Northrop Grumman Corporation's Chineta Davis shows. Davis' rise, to become Northrop Grumman's first Black woman vice president, also shows what happens when discrimination's intended victims keep on pushing. Davis, a schoolteacher's daughter, was one of the first Blacks in a formerly all-White school in rural Maryland. Told of Davis' ambition to be a mathematician, her fifth-grade teacher said to be a seamstress instead. She repeated this to Davis' horrified parents, calling it "a good job for Blacks." Needless to say, neither young Chineta nor her parents accepted that. She later earned a math degree at historically Black Morgan State University and won a Westinghouse scholarship in mechanical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. Fellow students and some professors, still smarting over segregation's demise, openly displayed unhappiness, but again her parents intervened. Encouraged by Hopkins' dean, Davis hung in there. A co-op posting at the then-Westinghouse Electronics division, part of the award, was marred when the student had to fight for tasks up to her talent and education, instead of the menial ones offered. After graduation, she met stiffer resistance -- and blatant prejudice -- in the White-male dominated workplace. Again, perseverance won out. Davis went from resented outsider to engineering mainstay, reinvigorating the manufacture of "hybrid" analog/digital radar circuitry packages, originally bulky and heavy, that sweep a radar beam electronically instead of mechanically via antenna arrays. Teams under her direction sharply cut subsystems' size and weight, making them cornerstone components of "next-generation" fighters such as the F-22 Raptor and Joint Strike Fighter. The Cold War's end saw defense contractors looking to sell "dual-use" products on the civilian market in the 1990s, and here Davis was a key pathfinder. MIL-SPEC standards are pricey for this environment, and Davis quickly learned how to compete with lower costs. Beginning with a contract to "Americanize" and manufacture German-designed mail-sorting gear, Davis, a graduate of the Harvard General Manager program as well as the University of California's Executive Management program, used Total Quality Management skills to please U.S. Postal Service buyers, ultimately building a whole new business worth hundreds of millions a year. Under Northrop-Grumman's leadership, Davis has prospered. She now heads the division that made the famed Norden Bombsight of World War II, in an environment where her talents and hard work finally are well appreciated. The Achieving Life We pause here to celebrate the life of an HBCU graduate who set out not only to make a difference where he worked, but to change the entire support paradigm for historically Black institutions. Lawrence Porter took his B.Sc. in E.E. at Tennessee State University in 1958, a time when Black engineers were rara avia. Beginning at the Air Force Research Laboratory as a staff engineer, he investigated thermionic and then-new, solid-state electronics. Vacuum-tubes dominated high-power military and civilian systems, and military users were pioneering transistor applications. Porter was in the center of the mix. He rose to Avionics Directorate chief of plans, handling strategic and tactical R&D budgets in excess of $300 million. He had to defend them before Air Force leadership, the Pentagon, and Congress, and developed a ready feel for relationships at the top. In addition to leading a 25-man science and engineering team and providing program oversight for more than 500, Porter initiated the first contacts between military R&D staff and Tennessee State, Howard, and Central State Universities. He rose to chief of Management Operations and Facility divisions, directing 50-odd scientists and engineers in an electronics R&D group spending more than $400 million, in facilities valued at $175 million. Porter also ran the lab's Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. He also was director of plans, managing a billion-dollar research program with more than 2,000 scientists and engineers. In 1974, he launched his first master-stroke in support of HBCUs, leading Air Force R&D staff on site visits assessing the research capabilities of Tennessee State, Tuskegee, North Carolina A&T State, Prairie View, Howard, Southern, and Central State Universities. He hosted the engineering deans at a conference with senior leadership at Wright-Patterson, winning three -- Tennessee State, Howard, and Central State their first contracts. The lab also boosted its recruiting and hiring of research professionals trained at the schools. In 1979, Round Two began, with Air Force support for four HBCU "Regional Opportunity Conferences" held in Greensboro, N.C., Atlanta, Nashville, and Houston. Attendees came from about 70 schools and introduced the service's R&D community to capabilities they knew little about. Senior Air Force R&D managers, scientists, and engineers from across the country participated, describing opportunities for contracts, grants, summer employment for faculty and students, and full-time jobs available throughout the Air Force. Several other government agencies also sent representatives, producing many new contracts and grants. In 1983, Porter prompted the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to dedicate 10 percent of its Summer Faculty Research Program slots to faculty and students from HBCUs, giving each one 12 weeks of funded research experience. About 100 participants were picked, on a competitive basis, each year. Faculty members got attractive stipends, and each could bring a student, also with stipend, and an extra $15,000 to continue research back on campus. This helped introduce many qualified HBCU faculty and students to Air Force research opportunities, and many leveraged the experience into continued funding. They also strengthened research and teaching capabilities at their institutions. In 1985, Porter sold the powers that be on new support for R&D work at HBCUs and other Minority-serving Institutions. By now, his reach penetrated far into the Defense Department, and programs began at Morgan State, Prairie View, Southern, Tennessee State, Howard, North Carolina A&T State, Clark Atlanta, Tuskegee, and Florida A&M Universities. Porter also led the service to begin recruiting at the National Society of Black Engineers annual conference, leading a team to the 1989 Cincinnati conference, where they hired 10 people on-site. In 1990, Porter began using the Broad Agency Announcement procurement process to contract and support R&D at HBCUs and Minority-serving Institutions. That produced $13 million for research at Alabama A&M, Central State, Clark Atlanta, FAMU, Howard, Morgan, Prairie View A&M, Southern, and Tennessee State. It's now institutionalized within the Air Force Materiel Command, an agency with a $45-billion annual budget. Texas Southern, Fisk, and other HBCUs have begun Air Force research programs, and the process has been adopted by other agencies, causing a large impact on HBCU academic and research capabilities. In 1994, Porter "retired" but didn't go far. LPA Inc., his private consultancy, serves as "science and technology broker" supporting collaborations between government, industry, and universities. Rising, Rising Dr. Chandra Curtis also works in the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate. The lab's first Black female Ph.D. works in the Seeker Image and Signal Processing Branch, spearheading growth of competencies in Reconfigurable Computing for next-generation munitions. She's boosting the performance of unmanned, "smart" weapons. Dr. Curtis was an INROADS scholar at North Carolina A&T, learning business skills but meeting heavy challenges keeping up in her concentration, computer architectures. She persisted, bumping up her G.P.A. well enough to win a graduate assistantship. She had to work part time at a supermarket to help a younger sister pay undergrad tuition but won her M.Sc. the same day sister Robin took her B.Sc. in E.E. in 1998, proving that struggle does have its rewards. Curtis joined the Air Force lab in 2002, the only Black woman engineer, continuing studies to earn her A&T doctorate in 2004. Colleagues are already coming to her for help with field-programmable gate arrays, and her superiors say she is leading the effort to transition in-house research on reconfigurable computing to universities for research and classroom teaching. In her short time on the job, Dr. Curtis already has five technical publications. She also has begun following Porter's tracks, becoming a focal point for recruiting new talent at A&T, her alma mater. In Greensboro, she had served as a volunteer in the Guilford County Lunch Buddy program, at Vandalia Elementary School. She also volunteered to tutor algebra at Page High School. And she now participates in the NAACP ACT-SO (Academic, Cultural, Technical and Scientific Olympics) and is lead instructor in a high school youth program sponsored by Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church. Nano-Centric Dr. Jocelyn Hicks-Garner is another quick starter, knocking out research papers and discovering new phenomena before the ink dried on her diploma. Born in the U.S.A., she was raised in East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. She returned in 1990, in time to go to high school and experience the culture shock immigrants meet, learning about fast food, malls, and the fascination of entertainment media. She adjusted and settled into her suburban Washington community, excelling in math and science. The young Jocelyn Hicks chose Spelman College for its science programs and diverse faculty, majoring in chemistry. She became a tutor for her peers and won entry to a competitive Stanford University exchange program. There, she worked in the lab of famed scientist Richard Zare, who was investigating possibilities of life on Mars. She also tutored K-12 students in the East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring Organization. She chose the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for grad studies, surprised to be the only Black female in her major, with no female faculty to mentor her. Very un-Spelman-like. Her dissertation research came in the lab of the one professor who asked what she wanted to do rather than dictating to her. She studied the electron transfer and capacitance properties of gold nanoparticles, producing 10 refereed publications and presenting research at conferences across the country before finishing her Ph.D. The nano-word would come up again. She first joined DuPont, searching out ways to boost the performance of direct-methanol fuel cells. In a year, her work induced superiors to file several patent applications. Then she married, moved to L.A., and joined Raytheon Company. In short order, she was figuring out how to use molecular carbon nanotubes to improve mechanical fidelity of stereolithography-generated models. She also helped understand and resolve significant problems with Raytheon's Light Thermal Weapon Sight Surveillance System. Superiors say her insights "eclipse" those of others with much greater experience. Still just getting started, Dr. Hicks-Garner joined a Rotational Engineering Leadership Development program, which moves people to different Raytheon sites for exposure. That brought an innovative use of quartz crystal microbalances in vacuum bake-out procedures, increasing efficiency and reducing cost for internal customers. Remember, she's just getting started. Young, Gifted, and Undaunted You know there's something special going on when a beginner becomes known as a "guru." Vincent Hall had to climb steep hurdles to be an engineer: He had a "lazy" eye as a child, and his speech drew derision from classmates who thought he was "slow." He persevered and entered college on a scholarship, only to find he really wasn't ready. But refusing to give up, he erased his deficits in community college. At Prairie View A&M University, Hall was known for being organized. Professor Penrose Cofie says Hall "worked with me in the Thermal Science Research Center…. He assisted in the design and construction of a temperature safety control system for a 300-KW DC power supply. [He] also was assigned a project to test and calibrate an HP electronic load used for graduate research in the Electrical Power Lab…. He is a hard-working, knowledgeable, and creative individual with a keen sense of humor and a pleasant personality." And a guru? Well, he was an undergraduate teaching assistant, and his list of software and hardware competencies is long. The guru thing came after graduation, though, when he was a Lockheed Martin Space Systems engineer on the Timing, Video and Trajectory System at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center. That's where people started calling him the "guru," deferring to him on technical issues. Hall transferred to Lockheed's Aeronautics Company in 2002 and had an immediate impact designing flight test gear. Superiors say Hall's solid technical ability, dedication, and professionalism were major contributors to the successful first flight of new generations of F-16s: "In the presence of advancing technology, Vincent is assisting in leading the Lockheed Martin Flight Test design efforts required to record and download fiber channel data from test aircraft. This capability is critical to our Flight Test capability to acquire and process high rate data from continually advancing aircraft systems." High praise from the boss of test and evaluation. Hmmm…. Wonder if Hall's ex-schoolmates can keep up with him now? Apprentice Temblor Tamer Terri Norton is a hurdle climber of a different kind. She tackles gross acts of nature. And even though still a student, her reach is world-wide. Norton is a civil engineering Ph.D. candidate at the Florida A&M-Florida State University College of Engineering, and her passion is defeating wind and earthquake damage. Compiling a 3.9 G.P.A. has gained her many honors. She's been inducted into six honor societies and has been an officer in professional engineering organizations including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. She's also been named a Seminole Torchbearer, a Ronald McNair Exemplary Fellow, a Presidential Fellow and a GAAN Fellow; been cited in "Who's Who Among American Colleges and Universities"; and been active in the Society of Women Engineers, the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, and the National Society of Black Engineers. Did we say world-wide reach? Norton has presented research at five U.S. conferences and three international ones, and been a field mission investigator evaluating the 2002 Molise earthquake in Italy. She also was a research ambassador at the University of Tokyo on three different occasions, as well as a research assistant in the Wind Hazard and Earthquake Engineering lab at FAMU-FSU, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Nebraska. Professor Makola M. Abdullah reports that Norton has produced seven publications and presentations, with her as lead author even on the five Dr. Abdullah also signed. Dr.-to-be Norton has been a teaching assistant in engineering mechanics and has done extensive research on the dynamic loading of buildings. And in addition to being a Florida State math tutor and volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, she also found time to be a varsity track and field athlete. She's a student of earthquakes who can shake things up pretty well herself. Scholar Power It is rare for a young person to become known as an innovator and leader in the short timeframe of a summer internship. When it does happen, you stand up and cheer. Vernon L. Newhouse, a master's degree candidate at the University of Michigan, is such a student: summa cum laude on his B.Sc., dean's list grades now. Cue the audience. It was clear something was up with him right from the beginning: He's still in school, but his nomination package was full of recommendations from GM engineering managers, not faculty. All described a young man rolling through assignments like a continuing storm, brewing up new ways to look at problems and solving them with dispatch, sweeping more experienced personnel along in his wake. At GM, everyone seems to want Newhouse on his team. When a tornado damaged the plant where he had planned to learn manufacturing, he took the only slot still available, Electrical Lab test engineering, and found a new opportunity to learn. A design release engineer had an ignition switch that made improper contact as it was turned. Could the lab determine the relationship of key position, in degrees of rotation, to the switch contacts? Newhouse built a manual test rig, but it was insufficient. So he caucused with technicians, scrounged unused gear, and built a computer-controlled, closed-loop system to automatically adjust the key position to the predetermined voltage drop across the switch. It met the requirements and was instrumental in solving the existing-product issue. Another time, he saw an engineer installing an experimental rear-view camera on an Escalade SUV, and he took over so he could learn about it. In still another case, Newhouse showed how Unigraphics 3-D software could be used to optimize trunk volume luggage load and find "best volume" space solutions with minimal operator intervention, using a given objects library and styling constraints. His functional demonstration model outlined a solution GM enlisted a major university to help perfect. When he left, lab technicians and engineers went to their boss asking for his help and were disappointed to find he'd gone back to school. That shows why it's time to cheer. Here's Another One Ditto for Chad Sterling. The University of California, Davis master's candidate has interned at Hewlett-Packard Company for four summers, moving between different areas and impressing all comers. Sharada Bose, of the Enterprise Systems and Technology Lab, put it this way: "The biggest challenge for a summer intern is to learn something and successfully use [it], all in a short period of about three months. Chad has no trouble doing this, and his contributions to my team and my lab are much valued." He had learned Perl and JavaScript well enough to program applications to monitor the real-time status of HPUX test systems, which run around the clock to test functionality and reliability to assure product quality. On a 2004 internship in Vancouver, Wash., Sterling volunteered to be roommate and mentor for three pre-freshmen, who then had a live-in role model to help prepare them for their first year of college. On the job, Sterling created applications Hewlett-Packard managers describe as "breakthroughs." One solved a security access issue with a SAP WebAS server, accessed through a Partner Portal by collaborating partner companies. His solution simplified the sign-on process, and he wrote training manual entries so HP personnel and partners would know how to use it. Carlise Robertson, Supply Chain IT development manager, praised Sterling's leadership of younger interns: "He displayed all of the qualities of a GEM member and mentored these young interns on his own. He will be taking on a mentorship role with our interns next year when he joins our team." Davis faculty add that Sterling is well-rounded. He graduated in 2003 with a 3.49 G.P.A. as an undergrad, after serving on the student government, participating as a tutor-mentor in the MESA schools program, and winning a Certificate of Excellence as the Outstanding Graduating Senior Man. And he's now carrying a 3.66 G.P.A. Environmental Mastery Several things stand out about Shannon Chambers. Lots of them, in fact. Let's start at the 3.7 G.P.A. she's cut in civil engineering at Southern University. But she's not a grind: In addition to winning an award for the highest G.P.A. in the Honors College and Junior Division, as a freshman, Shannon also won the Lt. Gen. Joe Ballard Scholarship and Ethyl Corp. Alumni Scholarship in 2002, and followed that the next year with the LAMP Scholar award, CEES Scholar award, and another award for the highest G.P.A. in the College of Engineering. She also is a Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellow and holder of the LA DOTD/SASHTO scholarship, Energy Department ORISE HBCU scholarship, and Honors College Academic Scholarship. But make no mistake: She's not a grind. Proof of that comes from her undergraduate research, internships, and leadership as vice president of Southern's student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She takes a lead role in organizing events and participates in all chapter and university department activities. Last January, she even went to ASCE's New Orleans workshop for student chapter leaders so she could learn strategies for effective leadership and chapter development. She's not a grind, but she is a meticulous student. In an Energy Department internship in Las Vegas, she helped survey design storage facilities for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. In student research at the University of Wisconsin, Chambers built and tested a sequencing batch reactor to test concepts of enhanced biological phosphorous removal for wastewater treatment. In the labs at Southern, she experimented with a dissolved air flotation system for treating contaminated wastewater. And she still finds time to be active in the National Society of Black Engineers and Honors Students Association. She's not a grind; she's a winner, in every sense of the word. Big Jobs at the Start William Harris IV, born to a military family at Fort Benning, Ga., decided he needed two degrees before getting a real job: He earned his B.Sc. in mathematics from Alcorn State University in 1997 then enrolled at Mississippi State University to complete a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He then enrolled in a state training course for engineers before enrolling again to pursue a master's degree at Mississippi State. And after taking all those deep breaths, Harris joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Vicksburg District as a civilian employee. In short order, he was outpacing more experienced colleagues. Beginning as a GS-6 engineer technician working on structural design in June 2000, Harris rapidly progressed to GS-7 using sophisticated tools to compute requirements and budget estimates for the construction of levees and drainage projects. A year and a half after his hiring, Harris had reached GS-9 and was developing his own designs for river channel improvements, drainage projects, cutoffs, levees and berms, and setbacks. In 2004, two years after being hired, Harris had reached GS-12 status, producing flood control projects along the Lower Mississippi Valley. He's become proficient in computer-aided design software and become his agency's in-house expert on performing land-use calculations using geographic information system maps to determine environmental impacts within construction limits for Corps projects and to assess whether to initiate remediation. Superiors say Harris' efforts have been significant in bringing three major projects to fruition: The $9-million Upper Yazoo Project to reduce flooding in the Mississippi Delta; the Lexington Levees and Channel Improvement project providing flood relief for Lexington, Miss., a $10-million job; and the Yazoo Diversion Canal, a $3-million job to improve navigation to the Vicksburg Harbor, a project for which he was design team leader. Look for him to keep climbing; GS-12 is hardly a place for him to stop. Onward, Upward Hampton University alumnus Dr. John Dixon was a star as an undergrad. He was active in the Association for Computing Machinery and IEEE, and won a National Science Foundation scholarship that allowed him to interact with practicing engineers and scientists who prepared him for co-ops and internships in weekly seminars. At the Hampton Science Center, he designed a touch-screen kiosk used to provide information to the university community. As a senior during an eight-month IBM co-op at Boca Raton, Fla., he wrote programs to test ThinkPad device drivers. He graduated cum laude in 1996. Dixon took his M.Sc. degree at Michigan State University in 1998, winning two departmental scholarships along the way. His M.Sc. project involved development of online collaborative software used by faculty and students to hold interactive tutorials. He also volunteered at the church-run Harvest House program in Lansing, Mich., tutoring and mentoring elementary and junior high students. Dixon completed his Ph.D. in computer science at Michigan State on a departmental scholarship, a Sloan Foundation grant, and a GEM scholarship. His dissertation developed a novel way to segment and summarize digital videos based on fusion of multiple information streams. He had joined The MITRE Corporation in 1996, and the research was incorporated into the Semi-Automated Video Exploitation and Dissemination (SAVED) research project that analyzed surveillance video from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Among other projects, Dixon also developed a graphical user interface for a Web-based scientific thesaurus. He also built a Web-based collaborative linguistics application and Web-based utility to search employee data and records. He's also developed algorithms and a research test-bed to analyze UAV video. Now a senior signal processing engineer, he's researching content-based retrieval techniques for the querying of medical data and imagery. In his short time at MITRE, he's already won a corporate Innovative Grant to research multi-camera video surveillance. He's continued his community service, too, as a founder of the Keys to Life Foundation, a nonprofit that works to advance the well-being of youth and families through intellectual enrichment and mentoring. Outstanding alumnus? You bet. Telematics to the Max It is a truism that engineers produce this society's wealth. Researchers say the engineers and scientists who make up 5 percent of the U.S. work force produce half of the economic growth, and engineers like Don Butler exemplify that fact. Butler, a 1986 honors graduate of the General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, has worked for GM his entire career. He started designing electrical systems for Corvettes and went to Harvard Business School on a GM Fellowship. His M.B.A. moved him into marketing. As a Pontiac Division zone manager, he was responsible for product lines with more than $600 million in annual sales. Success got him into the big leagues, as assistant brand manager for Pontiac's best-selling car, with $3 billion in sales. He led a major vehicle redesign, winning awards and recognition from no less than J.D. Power and Strategic Vision. Butler joined OnStar in 2001, where as vice president of planning and business development, his blend of engineering and marketing skills has full play. OnStar had started up five years earlier, but he has helped make it an important differentiator, with 2.6 million subscribers. Telematics is a growth industry, and OnStar is leading the market charge. Butler has led negotiations with other manufacturers and has driven increased GM installations. He's worked deals for OnStar use in Lexus, Acura, Audi, and Volkswagen products, and persuaded other GM units to boost installations by more than 50 percent. He's also led development of the OnStar Handset program, a joint marketing arrangement with Verizon Wireless that gives drivers a hands-free calling capability. A partnership with GMAC Insurance offers "Mileage-Based Insurance," premiums charged on miles actually driven, leveraging remote connectivity to retrieve vehicle mileage data. The Cadillac Virtual Advisor, an on-demand, voice interactive service delivering location-based traffic and weather information along with stock quotes, will go into 2005 Cadillacs. Finally, a technical paper Butler wrote describes a major advance in emergency response, Advanced Automatic Crash Notification, upgrading the service customers consider the best value. The new system will not only transmit accident and GPS location data to OnStar customer service centers, connecting voice calls to verify driver status, but also will send data and calls to the closest 911 dispatch service. To make it all work, Butler's team is working with municipal 911 dispatchers, telephone companies, fire and emergency medical services and hospitals to develop common data interfaces and resource-sharing agreements. It's a big job, and Butler's vision is just as big. IT Market Master Willie "Pete" Peterson manages marketing at a different level. His team sells IT products and services to companies, and many of those companies turn around and resell what they buy. The first Black American to lead both sales and marketing functions for Tech Data Corporation, Peterson directs daily operations for two divisions that bring in 38 percent of the U.S. revenue. For the bean counters out there, that's nearly $7 billion of the company's $17.4 billion revenues. It wasn't always this way. Peterson, a 1984 business graduate of Tuskegee University, started out in financial management, first at Polaroid Corporation and then at pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. He began his marketing career at Linvatec, a Squibb subsidiary making medical devices, and there was no stopping him after that. Peterson joined Tech Data in 1996, beginning as a Sales Division manager, and was quickly promoted to director. Supervising a staff of 80, Peterson was responsible for critical sales support functions, including compensation development and management of the distributor's sales team. When he stepped up to director of business operations, he ran a $1-billion sales, support, and product procurement operation, including management of an outsourcing agreement with General Electric Company. He was instrumental in winning his company the computer industry's largest-ever outsourcing agreement and oversaw its integration into overall operations. Just before taking his present job, Peterson was vice president of East and Government Sales, Tech Data's largest division, responsible for 35 percent of its U.S. revenue. Now he's bumped up again, responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with more than 75 leading computer hardware manufacturers and software publishers, including IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Symantec Corporation, and VERITAS Software Corporation. He leads a team of more than 90 employees. Voluntary Strength Sportswriters might call Eric Downey a "Double Threat" hitter: He's a leader in the for-profit arena and in working with not-for-profit enterprises. But "threat" would not fairly describe him. Rather, the West Point graduate and former Army tank commander goes about his duties as the most nonthreatening person in his workplace, excelling at his tasks enough to win citations from no less than the chairman of the board of Abbott. Downey joined Abbott after he left the Army in 1989 and spent four years as a facilities engineer. He moved up to maintenance supervisor, then capital plan coordinator, leading restructuring of preventive maintenance programs to address audit issues at facilities in Abbott Park, Ill.; Barcelona, Spain; and Jayuya, P.R. Next, he became a project engineer, then global standardization manager -- which is exacting work in a company like Abbott -- making pharmaceutical products to meet high government standards for safety and effectiveness. Downey might be forgiven for saying his hands are full. But he doesn't. The son of a career Air Force man, he learned at 14 what it means to have no male role model at critical moments. His father was away, and he had to get help from a neighbor with his necktie, feeling a need for mentoring that was not there. Downey makes sure other children get that mentoring now. He's a Big Brother volunteer in Lake County, Ill., working with his second "Little Brother," a boy abandoned by his mother at 13 after his father was gunned down. Since 1995, Downey also has volunteered at Northpointe Resources, Inc., a nonprofit that works with the mentally and physically challenged, with a mission "to empower persons with disabilities and special needs to develop their full potential in the workplace and community." Northpointe provides training, education, and residential services. Businesses hire its clients, who are prepared for full-time, part-time, or temporary work through social and work-skills training. Downey first joined the Building Committee, using his facilities engineering skills to help upgrade the physical plant. Then, he chaired the Fund Committee, using his corporate skills to improve Northpointe's budgeting and fund-raising efforts. He's a three-time board president who has radically reshaped its approach to fund raising. Back on his "real" job, Downey volunteers in other ways. He works with the Corporate Engineering Diversity Task Force, where he's spearheaded efforts to develop strategies and tactics to achieve the corporate diversity vision. Another is working with the Skilled Trades Career Mentor Program, which introduces high schoolers to the skilled-trades jobs and engineering opportunities within Abbott. Downey volunteers time providing information and giving answers to youngsters asking what engineers do and how to become one. Paving Many Ways Dr. Shannon Suber is still another winner who grew up under segregation, outgrew its restrictions, and never forgot the need to open doors for others. Suber went to segregated schools in East Texas -- into the 1970s -- until mandatory busing sent her to a school with better resources. She still has vivid memories of the segregated movie theater and doctor's office, and the requirement to go to the back of the Dairy Queen to pick up food orders. A scholarship took Suber to the University of Texas at Austin, and she's never looked back. After graduating with a business degree in 1984, she enrolled for M.B.A. studies at Austin State University, staying on to teach. In 1990, Suber went to Texas A&M University, where in 1990 she became the management program's first-ever Black woman Ph.D. Then Suber joined Texas Instruments Incorporated, a company with a commitment to open its doors to diversity. She has played a leadership role in championing efforts such as TI's Diversity Councils and its employee affinity groups, such as the Black Employee Initiative, beginning with her work as a manager of organizational effectiveness, through moves to a regional staffing center, employee relations representative, and manager of university relations. In 2000, Dr. Suber became manager of minority and women business development and came into her own. Now director of the initiative, she has implemented a number of important process improvements, including an online "tool kit" and supplier database, mandatory third-party certification of suppliers' diversity status, and a strong second-tier program. She also helped design and execute a workshop on economic inclusion that was mandatory training for all members of TI's Procurement and Logistics organization. The Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Business Development Council holds Dr. Suber in high esteem, saying she has been a catalyst in ensuring equal opportunity in supplier diversity at TI and that, moreover, she has demonstrated such leadership that others in other corporations emulate her. Perhaps the best indicator of her success is this: In 2003, Texas Instruments announced plans to build a $3-billion semiconductor plant in Richardson, Texas, creating significant private-sector contracting opportunities. Dr. Suber assembled an array of minority contractors and ethnic chamber of commerce leaders who impressed her superiors and worked collectively to help TI accomplish its stated goal of 30 percent minority- and women-owned enterprise contracting on the construction and basic infrastructure of the project. Dr. Suber is the driver to make it happen. Energy, and Then Some Gregory C. Dudley had two seminal experiences that shaped his commitment to public service. The first was his own early mentoring, via a program called Cooperating Hampton Roads Organizations for Minorities in Engineering (CHROME). Dudley was president of his high school CHROME club, expressing early ambitions to be a mechanical engineer. The second was the tragic death of his Virginia Polytechnic Institute roommate and best friend, Diron Parks. Parks had cofounded a Black Male Coalition to host forum discussions on issues affecting the community and run a Saturday Academy tutoring young Blacks in math, history, and other subjects. Parks, who also volunteered in other activities, graduated before Dudley, and returned home to Washington D.C. Then in November 1996, just before Dudley's graduation, Parks died of a severe asthma attack. Dudley had an epiphany: Why was Parks gone, after all his hard work to get a degree and make a difference in his community? Why was Dudley still here? Dudley took his guidance from W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk": "The passing of a great human institution before its work is done, like the untimely passing of a single soul, but leaves a legacy of striving for other men." Dudley, B.Sc. in mechanical engineering in hand, went to work for Northrop Grumman Newport News, quickly distinguishing himself in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program developing test programs and procedures for heavyweight stock testing, vibration testing, and thermal flow testing of mechanical components and fluid systems. He also is lead engineer for a design study of a plate and frame heat exchanger, a new-concept component used in Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers. Off and on the job, Dudley strives to fulfill his friend's legacy. He's a volunteer in a laundry list of organizations and activities, including CHROME, the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the National Society of Black Engineers Alumni Extension, the Peninsula Engineers Council, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. He speaks before pre-college math, science, and engineering clubs; serves as a math tutor and workshop facilitator; and has spent four years as planning chair for an annual Professional Development Day, at which participants learn about career development, personal finance, and other personal development topics. Diron Parks, looking on from somewhere, would be proud. To read more about 2005 Black Engineer of the Year Award Winners: 'The Year of the Entrepreneur' see 2005 Black Engineer of the Year Award Winners: 'The Year of the Entrepreneur' in the USBE News archive. © Copyright by Career Communications Group, Inc. 729 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202 410.244.7101 |
