AT&T Inc., Wal-Mart, and the United States Military are some of the largest employers with finalists for the 34th annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards.

Winning scientists and engineers also come from The Aerospace Corporation, and MITRE, which operate federally funded research and development centers.

Boeing, America’s biggest manufacturing exporter, has several employees up for awards. Also in the aviation category, is Bellflight, a subsidiary of Textron Inc. Other nominating organizations include Boston Scientific, a manufacturer of medical devices, and Corteva Agriscience, an agricultural chemical and seed company.

From the auto industry are companies like General Motors; the Nissan Technical Center, which is the headquarters for Nissan research and development in North America; The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, and Cummins, “a global power leader” for diesel and alternative fuel engines and generators, and related components and technology.

One BEYA winner at the Technical Solutions division of Huntington Ingalls Industries supports its mission to provide fleet maintenance in 35 states and 11 countries. Huntington Ingalls Industries is America’s largest military shipbuilding company.

‘Massive technology footprint’

Walmart isn’t just the largest retailer in the world, the company has a “massive technology footprint with 500,000 network devices, 38,000 servers, 3 global data centers, and 250 million customer transactions per week,” according to its website. A technologist from Walmart Information Security Engineering won a Legacy Award as did an analog engineer from the tech giant, Intel.

Employees from defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics also have finalists. For more than a quarter-century, IBM has showcased leading employees in information technology (IT) company at the BEYA STEM Conference.

The top Black Engineer of the Year Award goes to Army Lieutenant General Bruce Crawford. He became the Army Chief Information Officer (CIO)/G-6 in 2017.

As the CIO, LTG Crawford is the principal advisor to the Secretary of the Army, setting strategic direction and objectives for the Army network, and supervising all Army C4 (command, control, communications, and computers) and Information Technology (IT) functions. As the G-6, he advises the Chief of Staff of the Army on the network, communications, signal operations, cybersecurity, force structure, and equipping.

Lt. Gen Crawford will be presented with his award at the BEYA Gala on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, in Washington, DC.

Other category awards include the Dave Barclay Award for Affirmative Action, Career Achievement, Community Service, K-12 Promotion of Education, College-Level Promotion of Education, Lifetime Achievement, Most Promising Engineer, Outstanding Technical Contribution, Professional Achievement, Research Leadership, Senior Technology Fellow, Student Leadership, and Technical Sales and Marketing. Click here for the full list of award recipients at Saturday’s gala

Legacy awards are traditionally presented at BEYA’s Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Engineering Deans Power Breakfast. They include the Linda Gooden Legacy Award for Entrepreneurship, the Albert J. Edmonds Legacy Award in Federal IT, the Joe N. Ballard Legacy Award for Public Engineering Services, the Rodney C. Adkins Legacy Award for Business Transformation, the Dr. John Brooks Slaughter Legacy Award for Higher Education and Leadership, the Anthony R. James Legacy Award in the Utilities category, the William R. Wiley Award for Research, and the Walt W. Braithwaite Award for Aviation.

Register now for the BEYA STEM Conference.