The Legacy Awards are given every year at the BEYA STEM Conference to recognize those who have volunteered in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) community and have demonstrated excellence in the STEM workforce.

These awards honor the contributions of men and women who have won the Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) since 1987. For more than five years, the Engineering Deans Breakfast at BEYA has been the venue for special recognition honorees to receive Legacy Awards.

Gilbert “Chip” Jones III is a staff engineer and systems architect at Northrop Grumman Corporation and is the recipient of the 2024 Dr. Christopher T. Jones Legacy Award.

Gilbert Jones is an exceptional leader in STEM who has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to learning and applying his skills to bring people together to achieve common goals.

Dr. Jones has successfully tutored students at multiple academic levels in STEM fields and wrote the curricula for SAT Prep and ACT Prep classes in 2019, which he taught free of charge to grade school students through a church.

His contributions to satellite ground systems and strike aircraft systems at Northrop Grumman have been outstanding.

Over the past eight years, he has architected, developed, and operated around ten ground systems, providing unique solutions to complex problems, leading to over $330 million in sales across Northrop Grumman Space Systems and NOAA.

Dr. Jones’ expertise in ground system development and systems engineering, coupled with his experience in aerospace engineering, enables him to deliver innovative and lasting solutions to complex ground systems and strike aircraft design scenarios.

Currently, he is leading the effort to establish strike aircraft training systems and scoping software development work, paving the way for a potential multi-billion-dollar new strike aircraft training system contract.

In 2019, Ramon Richards, the senior vice president of integrated technology solutions at Fannie Mae, received the Dr. Christopher Jones Legacy Award.

Dr. Christopher Jones, the 2016 Black Engineer of the Year and retired corporate vice president of Northrop Grumman, presented the award to Richards.

Richards is an executive leader with the Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF) organization and creates opportunities to strengthen the talent pipeline in technology leadership for African Americans.