In a Thursday morning email to key stakeholders, Veronica L. Nelson, executive director of Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE), announced the outcome of a recent election to elect a new board leadership.

Effective September, Gary Schneider will serve as Board of Directors Chair, and Matt Lavelle will be Board of Directors Vice-Chair.

Schneider is vice president for global technical sales in sales and distribution at IBM Corporation. Lavelle is a vice president of operations at Boston Scientific, where he is responsible for leading one of fourteen global manufacturing plants that leverage innovative technology to produce life-enhancing medical devices. Schneider and Lavelle succeed Scott Trapp and Jacklyn Mitchell Wynn, who have been at the helm of the AMIE Board over the past two years.

“I would like to thank you for participating in the 2021 AMIE Board of Directors Election process for our new Chair and Vice Chair,” Nelson wrote in the email. “The ballots for Chair and Vice Chair were reviewed and confirmed. Gary Schneider, IBM Corporation was elected to serve as the Board of Directors Chair, and Matt Lavelle, Boston Scientific Corporation was elected to serve as the Board of Directors Vice Chair effective September 2021 at the 3rd Quarter AMIE Board of Directors meeting.”

Nelson went on to thank the outgoing chair and vice-chair for their leadership. Trapp, corporate director of diversity outreach in Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Global Diversity & Inclusion office, gave the virtual welcome during the annual conference in September 2020.

“It’s AMIE’s goal to expand corporate, government, and academic partnerships that are implemented and geared towards supporting underrepresented minority students in engineering careers,” he said.

“It’s more than just a nonprofit where talent gets placed,” said Wynn, vice president for the federal health sector at GDIT Corporation. “We’re investing back into the HBCUs and our partnerships,” she said in her opening statement.

The 2021 virtual AMIE Annual Conference is scheduled to take place from September 8 to 9.

It will be the organization’s 28th annual event that brings together the Council of Engineering Deans of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), students, engineering professionals, and leaders from top corporations and government agencies.

The speaker lineup includes 2021 Black Engineer of the Year, Gerald Johnson, executive president for global manufacturing and sustainability, General Motors (shown in the poster); Sabina Ewing, vice president, business and technology services, Abbott, Barbara H. Whyte, vice president, inclusion and diversity, Apple, and Candice M. Smith, director, engineering people strategy, engineering strategy, and operations, The Boeing Company.