2013 US Black Engineer & Information Technology | DEANS - VOL. 37, NO. 2

Top Supporters of HBCU Engineering Schools

The STEM Community’s Magazi

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Successful Strategic Partnerships

Famous HBCU One on One with the Alumni and 2013 “Dean of Deans” Hall of Fame One Million American Engineers

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Inside TAP

The Hamletts Tim Atwell

Senior Vice President, Business Executive-Technology, ATM Bank of America USBE&IT Deans Edition 2012 USBE&IT Deans Edition 2013 www.blackengineer.com www.blackengineer.com

Short: HBCUs Take A Stand

Er CarE Ok: O OUTl puter Com nology Tech

noW tHe Most reaD BlaCK teCHnoloGY MaGaZine reaCHinG over 100,000 reaDers in tHe UniteD states, UK, anD soUtH afriCa

CONTEN Us BlaCK enGineer & inforMation teCHnoloGY

BrinGinG teCHnoloGY HoMe to tHe BlaCK CoMMUnitY

COVER STORY: Top Supporters of HBCU Engineering ............29 Why are the HBCU Engineering Schools important? Why they deserve support from public and private groups.

FEATURE: The 14 HBCU Schools of Engineering and some of their famous alumni ........................22 HBCUs graduate half of the nation’s Black engineers. In addition, they educate similarly large numbers of computer scientists, biological and natural scientists, and technologists

FEATURE: Hall of Fame.........45 Past winners of STEM honors awarded during the annual BEYA STEM, Women of Color STEM Conference, and Minorities in Research Science events

FEATURE: The Hamletts ....... 18 For Brother and Sister, Giving Back to STEM is an Easy “Chore”

FEATURE: The BEYA Experience Benefits Corporations and Students........................39 Diversity Support and Engagement Opportunities at BEYA STEM

Profiles in innovation

People and Events .................6

Career Communications Group Technology Awareness Program (TAP) is back this summer to educate, stimulate and motivate high school students in STEM

Tim Atwell, senior tech executive for Bank of America’s 16,000 ATMs, earned a computer science degree from A&T.

TS vo l u m e 3 7 n u m b e r 2

One on One...........................10

There is a reason why Eugene DeLoatch is often called “the dean of deans,” and it is not simply because he built from scratch Morgan State’s Clarence M. Mitchell School of Engineering.

eDUCation

On Campus........................... 14 Congressional Black Caucus seeks STEM Funding in Immigration Bill… “Hackathon” designed to jumpstart tech entrepreneurship, and North Carolina A&T looks to Community Colleges to boost STEM

Career oUtlooK.............51 Overview of men and women in computer technology professions 1. Job Horizon 2. Recruiting Trends 3. Professional Life — Career Achievers 4. Job Tips, Contacts and News You Can Use

PUBLISHER’S PAGE

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istorically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) continue to educate more than 33 percent of the nation’s Black engineers. In addition, HBCUs educate similarly large numbers of computer scientists, biological and natural scientists, and technologists. Many have been and continue to be, employed by employers who were hiring at the 2013 BEYA STEM Conference Career Fair held Feb. in Washington D.C. Also at the BEYA STEM Global Competitiveness Conference were deans of the 14 HBCU Engineering Schools. In their annual roundtable, they discussed best practices in community-industry-government-education partnerships and strategies helping to ensure a steady pipeline of diverse STEM graduates.

Career Communications Group, publisher of US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, has run the annual Top Supporters of Historically Black College and University Engineering Schools survey since 2003. The “Top Supporters” targets corporations and government agencies, and the survey is completed by the engineering deans of Black college and university engineering programs and the corporate academic alliance, Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE).

The first-ever poll was conducted to find the employers that contributed the most to HBCU engineering schools. In 2003, the deans of ABETaccredited historically Black college and university engineering programs were asked to list five corporate or government sponsors they felt contributed most to their institutional missions. The number of supporters later grew to 10.

Over the last decade, HBCU deans have considered the following factors while making their decision: support for infrastructure modernization and enhancement, research, participation on advisory councils, faculty development opportunities, scholarships, student projects, stipends, co-ops and career opportunities.

HBCUs invited to participate in the survey are: Alabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, Jackson State University, Morgan State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Prairie View A&M University, Southern University and A&M College, Tennessee State University, Tuskegee University, University of the District of Columbia and Virginia State University. These schools produce 33 percent of the nation’s Black engineers.

The BEYA STEM Career Fair was open to students as well as professionals seeking employment and networking opportunities with the nation’s top employers.

Tyrone D. Taborn, Publisher and Editorial Director

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 3

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US Black Engineer & Information Technology (issn 1088-3444) is a publication devoted to engineering, science, and technology and to promoting opportunities in those fields for Black Americans. The editors invite submissions directed toward the goals of US Black Engineer & Information Technology. in particular, we wish to present ideas and current events concerning science and technology, and personalityprofiles of successful Blacks in these fields and related business pursuits. Fully developed articles may be sent for consideration, but queries are encouraged. US Black Engineer & Information Technology invites letters to the editor about any topics important to our readership. articles and letters should be sent to: US Black Engineer & Information Technology, editorial Department, 729 e Pratt st., 5th floor, Baltimore, MD 21202. no manuscript will be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. US Black Engineer & Information Technology cannot be responsible for unsolicited art or editorial material. this publication is bulk-mailed to 150 colleges and universities nationwide. subscriptions are $26/ year. Please write to US Black Engineer & Information Technology, subscriptions, 729 e. Pratt st., 5th floor, Baltimore, MD 21202.

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www.blackengineer.com

Complex challenges, breakthrough solutions — that’s Corning’s brand of innovation.

Corning is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 160 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning conceives and creates keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Discover how Corning works closely with customers to turn mere possibilities into breakthrough realities. corning.com/possibilities

Corning is proud to be recognized as one of the country’s top corporate supporters of engineering programs at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by U.S. Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine.

Our employees, including Dr. Steven Ogunwumi, recent Career Communications Group Alumni Hall of Fame inductee, help ensure that our ideas turn into breakthrough technologies that can change the world and people’s lives.

Profiles in innovation We celebrate the men and women who are reinventing and reenergizing steM, business, and government.

People and Events

InsIde tap

W

by Rayondon Kennedy rkennedy@ccgmag.com

ith America’s growing need for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals, programs like TAP aim to motivate young minds to pursue these vital careers. Entering its third year, the Career Communications Group Technology Awareness Program (TAP) comes back this summer to continue its mission to educate, stimulate and motivate the minds of high school students.

The TAP program hosts its sessions on the campuses of different Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). It is here that middle and high school students are exposed to a college atmosphere.

They take campus tours, meet with professors and interact with current students at the universities. The university students serve as mentors to the campers. They talk with the campers about the school, about the work-life balance of a college student and anything else they can advise on to the students during the three-day camp.

Another highlight of the camp is the guest speakers who come in and speak to the TAP campers. The speakers are STEM professionals who love their jobs and love giving back to help the next generation of STEM professionals.

The opportunity to give back attracted two speakers back to their alma mater, South Carolina State University (SCSU).

“I felt I had a responsibility to give back and teach the next generation about some of the experiences we went through,” says Ogunna Njoku, a management consultant at IBM, while talking about what attracted him to the TAP program.

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www.blackengineer.com

2013 TAP SuMMEr lOcATIONS Jackson State university Southern university Morgan State university Prairie View A&M university For official dates and registration information visit us at www.ccgmag.com

Njoku was joined by his fellow SCSU classmate, Terrence Head, director of productization at BAE Systems Inc., who also jumped at the opportunity to go back to his former school and speak to possible future Bulldogs sitting in the crowd.

When asked why they felt that a program like TAP was needed, Head says that he felt TAP was essential in giving these students an opportunity to learn how to place themselves in the STEM field, and how to learn the difference between the many different fields in which they could choose to be.

“TAP is a way for [students] to come in contact with people who look like them…and they can ask us questions, because they might not come in contact with a STEM professional at their school, at their church or in their family,” Head continues.

Attending the TAP camp gives the students a great opportunity to meet role models like Head and Njoku.

TAP is a great experience not only for the students, but for the speakers as well. They enjoy their interactions with the students as they answer questions and get to know the group. A favorite moment of Njoku’s was watching the faces of the students light up when they showed a slide of entry-level salaries, then explaining how Terrence Head, director of productization at BAE Systems Inc., and Ogunna Njoku, a that wasn’t the salary of a 10-to-15-year management consultant at IBM. employee. The number shown was the average of someone fresh out of college.

For Head, his favorite moment was the experience — the experience of watching the attitudes of the students change throughout the course of his presentation.

“I could see the possibility of them being a STEM professional grow in their eyes,” he says. “I could tell by their attentiveness and by the types of questions they were asking, that possibility of them being a STEM professional was becoming a reality.”

That’s what TAP is all about: Helping our youth realize their —Terrence Head potential and bringing it out of them. Showing them that they can design, make and influence the same gadgets and technology that they can’t live without. Showing them their potential and then helping them reach it, so that one day they will do the same.

“I could see the possibility of them being a STEM professional grow in their eyes.”

www.blackengineer.com

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 7

Profiles in innovation We celebrate the men and women who are reinventing and reenergizing steM, business, and government.

One on One

by Garland Thompson gthompson@ccgmag.com

eugene M. deLoatch, the “dean of deans”

Eugene M. Deloatch, dean and professor, clarence M. Mitchell Jr. School of Engineering, Morgan State university

T

here is a reason why Eugene DeLoatch is often called “the dean of deans,” and it is not simply because he founded and built from scratch Morgan State University’s highly regarded Clarence M. Mitchell School of Engineering.

Rather, it’s because, he was a pioneer along many other lines of professional activity:

• He was an early participant in one of the first—if not

THE first—“three-two” engineering education programs.

It’s often overlooked today how much “de facto” segregation existed during the 20th century’s middle years, but Lafayette College’s partnership with historically Black Tougalou and Lincoln universities was blazing a path few

10 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

“mainstream” institutions then dared to follow.

•

He was founder of the Council of Deans of the HBCU Engineering Schools, in the fall of 1986. “There were only six fully ABET-accredited HBCU programs then (Howard, North Carolina A&T, Prairie View A&M, Southern, Tennessee State and Tuskegee universities),” DeLoatch says. “When I chaired electrical engineering at Howard, we had an HBCU engineering department chairs’ group (Harold Martin at A&T was very active with it), but nothing like a Deans’ Council.”

“The American Society for Engineering Education had a Black Colleges Support Group, with senior corporate officers and the leaders of ASEE trying to bring some support to Black colleges, but we had no voice,” DeLoatch explains. “So, when I www.blackengineer.com

became Morgan’s dean, I said, ‘Let’s form our own council—a caucus within ASEE―and speak for ourselves.’ So we did, with six original signatories, and two intending to join (Morgan and Hampton, which hadn’t had their initial ABET accreditation reviews).

“Then, FAMU, Morgan and Hampton signed on, and Alabama A&M won the right to start a program (part of the settlement of Knight v. Alabama, over disparate funding of Black colleges). Then, the University of the District of Columbia, Norfolk State and Virginia State joined the council.

Jackson State began its program (after the landmark U.S. v. Fordice lawsuit, originally begun as Ayers v. Mabus was settled). And, Art Bond became the founding dean.”

Here, as elsewhere, the “dean of deans” played an important contributing role.

“I was a member of the study group to determine whether an engineering program should be established in Jackson, Miss.,” Dr. Deloatch says. “There were committees to study establishing programs in engineering, pharmacy and law. The Pharmacy Committee decided it should be a “pre-pharm” program, with three years at Jackson State and the final years at Ole Miss. A private law school decided to sell itself to Jackson State.

“The Engineering Committee met with the Mississippi state legislators. One member said he just couldn’t see Jackson State having an engineering program. But I pointed out that the two public-access engineering schools in the state were 120 and 170 miles away. Why shouldn’t the state capital have an engineering school?”

Those lawsuits, begun by Jake Ayers in Mississippi and an Alabama A&M student in the state next door, had to overcome strong opposition in the formerly segregated South.

Differential funding and a dearth of top-of-the-line programs, as Jake Ayers argued, worked a discriminatory result, barring the path for African-American college students to pursue technical careers.

In Maryland, the issue was access, DeLoatch says.

“The bottom line was really access to a very important career area for young people in Baltimore, who had no concept of where [the state’s flagship university at] College Park was. It was not a fair game. The University of Maryland was the only public-access engineering college, but the Black students in Baltimore were not really targeted for recruitment.

“The Maryland General Assembly commissioned a study, led by Percy Pierre. It found that an engineering school was needed in the Baltimore area, and it should be at Morgan State University. That precipitated a battle in the legislature where everybody came out of the woodwork. College Park especially did not want a program here.

“Eventually, it was decided there would be two programs, at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and at Morgan.

Andrew Billlingslea, Morgan’s former president, gave his last www.blackengineer.com

drop of blood in that fight. State Sen. Clarence Blount and Del. Howard Rawlings [both now deceased] led the charge for Morgan.

“I had spent 24 years as head of electrical engineering at Howard, and I came to Morgan after that.”

Here, the good doctor was being modest. Contemporary accounts say that at first, DeLoatch was not so keen to make the move. Morgan’s search committee, once it settled on its best candidate, in 1984 made an offer the good doctor could not refuse. The rest is history.

“The Maryland General Assembly commissioned a study, led by Percy Pierre. It found that an engineering school was needed in the Baltimore area, and it should be at Morgan State University.

That precipitated a battle in the legislature where everybody came out of the woodwork.”

—Eugene M. DeLoatch

And, Eugene DeLoatch continued to make history. He started out by recruiting his former students. Pamela Mack (later the founding dean at Virginia State), a Howard grad DeLoatch encouraged to continue on to complete her master’s degree, was the first. “I said why don’t you try teaching? And I got her to push on to her Ph.D. And after that, I just kept reaching out to people I knew.”

Fresh from getting a brand new engineering school up and running, “Dr. De,” as he is affectionately known around campus, pushed to form the Council of HBCU Engineering Deans.

Then, in a stroke that resounded across industry, he sat down to lunch with his former boss, Howard University Engineering Dean Lucious Walker, and Tyrone Taborn, who had just moved to Baltimore with his young magazine publishing company, Career Communications Group.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 11

The Morgan State University School of Engineering

Saluting Our Founding Dean

Dr. Eugene DeLoatch Congratulations

Job well Done!

www.morgan.edu

Profiles in innovation

One on One continues “We’d had a reception in the fall of 1985, and I’d asked, ‘What can we do to get more Baltimore students interested in engineering?’ It was clear we had to show them examples of people who were successful in engineering. We wanted to do something like the Academy Awards—show them the role models, in an exciting setting. The Black Engineer of the Year Awards came out of that discussion.

“AMIE (Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering, the corporate-academic partnership to support Black college technical programs) started five years later.

“An executive at Abbott Laboratories had a talk with Luke Walker, telling him he wanted to forge a relationship with HBCU. Walker said he’d get the deans to come out to Chicago to Abbott Labs’ facility. At that time, corporate engineering vice presidents were active in the Industrial Research Institute, people from across industry. He knew all of those VPs, and in 1990, he invited 200 of them to an event in Chicago, at which the deans made a coordinated presentation on HBCU engineering programs as a national resource.

“The next meeting was at GM, and out of those two

meetings, AMIE was formed. As the good doctor explained, AMIE works to provide resources—lab equipment, program support, etc.—to strengthen the HBCU programs, which now compete not only against other HBCU, but against traditionally white institutions that have realized the potential of AfricanAmerican students.”

Now, DeLoatch, the former president of the American Society for Engineering Education (2001-2002), presides over an engineering school cited as the No. 1-producer of Black electrical engineers in America, and the No.1-producer of Black civil engineers. He chairs ASEE’s Projects Board, is a member of ASEE’s Policy Committee, and sits on the Editorial Board of its Journal of Engineering. In addition, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Maryland Science, Engineering and Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), which works to promote Maryland as one of the most competitive states for technology and economic development, serves as chairman of the Council of HBCU Engineering Deans, and has served on the National Research Council’s Board of Engineering Education.

And he’s not done yet.

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USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 13

eDUCation

On Campus

by M.V. Greene mgreene@ccgmag.com

congressIonaL BLack caucus seeks steM fundIng In IMMIgratIon BILL

M

embers of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have been pushing for a provision to add immigration reform legislation to provide additional funding for STEM education at HBCU. Within the context of immigration reform sweeping the country, CBC members say American companies need to be prodded to find workers in the United States before looking outside the country, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The provision the CBC is pushing would use fees American firms pay from H-1B visa applicants to help fund HBCU STEM activities.

Technology businesses have lobbied Congress for an expansion of the H-1B visa program, a nonimmigrant program that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations for three years, extendable to

six years. In 2013, the government has awarded some 85,000 H-1B visas from about 124,000 applications.

“Those fees would be dedicated to investment at HBCU and Hispanic-serving institutions where there is the most need to develop our next generation of engineers,” says Rep. Steve Horsford (D-NV) at an April 9, 2013, CBC forum in Washington that examined Black immigration.

“What we have asked for as members of the CBC is that there be an investment made from those fees that go back into the capital costs for HBCU to rebuild their science programs so we can generate the professionals right here in the United States,” Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) says.

Proposed legislation being circulated through Congress would increase the number of H-1B visas for foreign workers by nearly 70 percent.

“hackathon” desIgned to JuMpstart tech entrepreneurshIp A “hackathon” competition at Howard University and other HBCU is highlighting the building of applications as a means for helping to increase the number of Black technology entrepreneurs.

At Howard, the Department of Systems and Computer Sciences hosted more than 20 students developing mobile computing applications in 24 hours in the Black Founders Startup Ventures hacking competition Feb. 15-16, 2013.

Black Founders Startup Ventures is a San Francisco-based group whose mission is to increase the number of successful Black entrepreneurs in technology, part of a national “HBCU Hacks” campaign.

Hadiyah Mujhid, Black Founders Startup Ventures co-founder, says the campaign aims to expose students to hacking competitions to help them feel more comfortable developing software to solve problems. “We believe that increasing the amount of students at Black colleges hacking and building applications will ultimately increase the number of Black tech entrepreneurs,” Mujhid says.

A team of three Howard systems and computer science students, senior Antonio McMichael and juniors Jeremy Blackstone and Nigel Randall, took 14 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

the top coveted prize, besting six other teams by working throughout the night to create an app that enables users to locate small and obscure buildings in urban settings. The app provides users with real-time data that improves cellular GPS capability.

“They may have created another way to market to people through augmented reality,” says Legand Burge III, chairman

of the Department of Systems and Computer Sciences, of the three who won a $500 grand prize. “I’m surprised they got it done in 24 hours.”

Judges included representatives from Facebook and Microsoft. Burge said such events would help fill the “significant void in the presence of African-American technology entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and across the nation.” www.blackengineer.com

north caroLIna a&t Looks to coMMunIty coLLeges to Boost steM It is hardly a secret in education circles that community college students often get the short end of the stick when it comes to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Community colleges are viewed as gateways for many students to receive formal, post-secondary education, but math and science education credits do not always transfer successfully to many fouryear colleges.

Considering that 50 percent of African-Americans, 55 percent of Latinos and 64 percent of American Indians who earned bachelor’s or master’s degrees in science or engineering began their studies in community college, the National Science Foundation has reported, the issue signifies one of urgency.

The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. (NACME), a STEM advocacy organization, has advocated a closer relationship between two- and four-year colleges in STEM in order to enable the successful transfer of students to four-year engineering programs.

An announcement from North Carolina A&T University’s College of Engineering that it has formed a joint partnership with Guilford Technical Community College in North Carolina will help to address the issue. Beginning in fall 2013, GTCC students will be able to apply for joint admission to A&T′s College of Engineering.

The partnership, officials at both schools say, will improve access to undergraduate STEM education and

randy Parker, president of GTcc, and A&T chancellor Harold Martin Sr. sign the agreement.

“This partnership with GTCC will enable the university to better meet our nation’s growing need for qualified STEM professionals.”

-A&T Chancellor Harold Martin Sr. provide coordinated services and activities in support of student retention and to increase graduation rates. The coadmission agreement is a first for both institutions and for the state of North Carolina in engineering.

“This partnership with GTCC will enable the university to better meet our nation’s growing need for qualified STEM professionals,” says A&T Chancellor

Harold Martin Sr. The partnership has two primary components. One is the co-admission program agreement and the other is a curriculum articulation agreement.

Select students will be co-admitted to both GTCC and North Carolina A&T simultaneously. The program will coordinate federal and financial aid disbursement, allow for one application fee for North Carolina A&T, and create special scholarship opportunities for Guilford County, N.C., graduates. The curriculum articulation agreement will allow successful students to apply 65 credits toward bachelor’s degrees in civil or mechanical engineering at A&T, enabling GTCC students to achieve junior standing upon transition.

GTCC hopes to enroll up to 30 students in the program in the fall 2013.

regIonaL aLLIance pushes steM MatrIcuLatIon The presidents of HBCU in the Baltimore-WashingtonVirginia region are pushing for additional matriculation of STEM students in baccalaureate and graduate degree programs in a National Science Foundation-funded alliance.

The program, called the Washington Baltimore Hampton Roads-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, or WBHR-LSAMP, is addressing underrepresentation of minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines and careers, targeting student recruitment, retention and graduation issues and maximizing research opportunities.

Alliance members are Howard University, Bowie State University, Hampton University, Morgan State University, www.blackengineer.com

Norfolk State University, Virginia State University and the University of the District of Columbia.

President Sidney Ribeau of Howard University, which hosted a recent meeting of the alliance, noted that STEM education is a cornerstone of his vision for Howard and stressed his commitment to the LSAMP initiative. The alliance is involved in a number of STEM collaborations in areas that include cancer research and smart lighting engineering.

Howard’s Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Wayne Frederick, highlighted the importance of student participation in research activities on alliance campuses, in national laboratories and through their international experiences.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 15

WORK FORYOURCOMPANY

About 12% of the U.S. population is African American, yet just over 5% of engineering professionals are African American.

How will you achieve diversity in this critical profession?

ASK ABOUT AMIE.

PLANT THE SEEDS OF GREATNESS. GROW AN AMIE PARTNERSHIP. 443-885-3077 e-mail: amie@eng.morgan.edu www.amie.ws

“I love teaching. I love being around the students, and I love encouraging them to go for everything they possibly can.”

—Mary Marie Hamlett

18 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

www.blackengineer.com

THE HAmlETTS For Brother and Sister, Giving Back to STEM is an Easy “Chore”

M

ary Marie Hamlett understands the value of guardian angels.

A rural Virginia middle school science teacher, Hamlett serves everyday as a sort of guardian angel to her students throughout a distinguished career in public education – such as the former student she ran into one summer who is now a successful dentist.

But Hamlett, presented with the 2012 Black Engineer of the Year Award for her work in K-12 Promotion of Education in STEM, also understands the importance of a guardian angel personally. Hers would have been her brother, Coolidge Hamlett Jr., Deputy Site Lead and Supervisory Electronics Engineer in the Avionics Department at the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Md. Like he does today in taking budding engineers and scientists under his wing, growing up Coolidge Hamlett Jr. also kept an eye out for his younger sibling’s best interests, particularly after their father died when he was in eighth grade. Mary Marie Hamlett recalls being in high school in the 1970s and learning about her brother’s actions on her behalf when she was grappling with whether to join the Marines at graduation or try to go to college.

For an economically challenged family operating a dusty tobacco farm in Halifax County, Va., college, much less the study of science, mathematics, engineering and technology, was hardly a given for the Hamletts. Each had propensity and skill for math, but nothing was assured.

That certainly didn’t deter Coolidge Hamlett Jr., himself a 2003 recipient of the Black Engineer of the Year Special Recognition Award in the Community Service Category and a 2004 recipient of www.blackengineer.com

by M.V. Greene mgreene@ccgmag.com

the Black Engineer of the Year Award in Community Service. As she was trying to figure out life after high school – continuing to toil on a farm wasn’t an option -- Coolidge Hamlett Jr. went to work behind the scenes at Halifax County Senior High School on her behalf, Mary Marie Hamlett recalled.

“I had no idea I would go to college. So what I would do (in high school) is register for just the basic classes. But (Coolidge Hamlett Jr.) would go in and talk to guidance to put me in higher-level classes. So when I got my class schedule, I am thinking, ‘How did this happen?’ I found out he had been talking to guidance in order to change my schedule so that I would be ready for college if I chose to go,” Mary Marie Hamlett said.

That story sums up nicely some dynamics of the relationship of this brother and sister pair, starting on the farm in gritty south-central Virginia where they would work on math problems together amid daily farm chores. It continues today with each of the Hamletts diligently doing a part to stoke the STEM pipeline and help other deserving students.

Put simply, they are doing with STEM what everybody says everybody should be doing.

“Just knowing that someone’s life that I touched and to see them succeeding and for them to tell me that when they came to school they enjoyed my class and it has helped them, that does it for me,” Mary Marie Hamlett, 50, said. “I love teaching. I love being around the students, and I love encouraging them to go for everything they possibly can.”

Coolidge Hamlett Jr., two years older than his sister, echoes a similar passion to give back.

“Sometimes when people are in situations, and if nobody is there to encourage them and you may not have the things that other young people may have, it still doesn’t limit your possibilities. If you can gain the knowledge and be able to perform, there still are opportunities for you,” he said.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 19

“You never know when you are meeting young people these days—they may be the next Einstein.”

—Coolidge Hamlett Jr., Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.

With her brother’s encouragement, Mary Marie Hamlett went on to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in middle school education in 1985 from Averett University, a small institution in Danville, Va., that was founded in 1859 as a school for young women.

She joined Halifax County schools as an eighth grade physical science teacher and coach of the girls’ track and field team. Later she also would earn her master’s degree in middle school education from Averett in 1993.

Many of the awards she has been presented with over the years attest to Mary Marie Hamlett’s success as a teacher, including her feat of leading 75 students in her eighth-grade physical science and seventhgrade life science classes to score 98 percent on the 2010 Virginia Standards of Learning Science test.

Halifax County presented her with its STEM Teacher Stellar Educator Award.

Hamlett says she strives to keep her students engaged about STEM and career possibilities, regularly entering them into competitions and bringing in guest speakers. We tell them what’s out there. We tell them what they are expected to study in order to go into these different fields of STEM,” she said.

Coolidge Hamlett Jr. commends his sister’s approach to education. “What I see is the fact that in her class she does a lot of activities so that her students are learning about technology and the application of technology even at that stage. When I was in eighth grade we weren’t doing things like that,” he said.

Coolidge Hamlett Jr. took a different route, but one no less important than his sister’s. While Mary Marie Hamlett is telling her students that they can be scientists and engineers, Coolidge Hamlett Jr. is the living proof that it can happen. When he visits his sister’s classroom annually to interact with her students they are able to get his unique perspective on STEM and engineering.

“I want to let them see that an engineer, he or she, can look like me. I never saw an engineer until I went to college,” he said.

Hamlett earned his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia 20 USBE&it 2012 USBE&iti sUMMer i sUMMer 2013

in 1985 and master’s of science degree in business administration from Boston University in 1991.

Today, he supervises more than 460 personnel in his role at the Naval Air Systems Command. His career with the military began after college at the Naval Air Depot in Cherry Point, N.C., as an electronics engineer. He received a number of promotions and moved eventually to Patuxent in 2005 as Airborne Communication, Navigation, & Identification Systems Branch Head position before being selected to his current position in 2010.

Getting to where he is today wasn’t assured for Hamlett. When he lost his father, Coolidge Hamlett Sr., he was thrust into an all-too familiar role for young men in similar situations -- de facto head of the household. Hamlett said that thanks to his mother, Annie Lee Medley Hamlett and grandmother, Mary Medley “the emphasis at that stage was doing well in school. Engineering was not something that we talked about and knew about, but school was important to the family. You do go to school and you do well, and I loved math. My grandmother, Mary Medley and my mother, Annie Lee Medley Hamlett everybody emphasized education.”

More than anything, Hamlett said he prepared himself for college as if he had no financial worries.

He advises his young charges in STEM to take a similar approach when setting goals.

“It did not stop me because I knew I couldn’t afford college. I did not stop trying to get ready for college. I was ready because I took the right classes and did well. I did not have the money, but there were scholarships and grants,” Hamlett said.

He continued: “Sometimes if you have a goal you don’t stop. You just keep going until it stops you. And perhaps it doesn’t stop you because there’s always going to be someone there who is going to help you” – noting in high school it was his trigonometry teacher, Mr. Johnson during his senior year who saw his potential and suggested a career in engineering.

Hamlett said such benefactors during his life make it easy for him to want to mentor others.

“You never know when you are meeting young people these days they may be the next Einstein,” he said. www.blackengineer.com www.blackengineer.com

The 14 Schools of

HBCU

Engineering and Technology

HiStORicALLy BLAcK cOLLEGES AND uNivERSitiES (HBcu) GRADuAtE ALmOSt HALf Of tHE NAtiON’S BLAcK ENGiNEERS. iN ADDitiON, HBcu EDucAtE SimiLARLy LARGE NumBERS Of cOmPutER SciENtiStS, BiOLOGicAL AND NAtuRAL SciENtiStS, AND tEcHNOLOGiStS. mANy Of tHEm HAvE BEEN, AND cONtiNuE tO BE, EmPLOyED By cOmPANiES tHAt SPONSOR uNDERGRADuAtE AND fAcuLty RESEARcH At HBcu AND PROviDE DONAtiONS fOR LABORAtORy DEvELOPmENt, fELLOwSHiPS, ScHOLARSHiPS, cuRRicuLum DEvELOPmENt AND K-12 OutREAcH EffORtS.

22 uSBE&IT I summer 2013

www.blackengineer.com

Spotlight on HBCU Schools and alumni Alabama A&M university college of Engineering, Technology and Physical Sciences Established: 1996 Engineering Enrollment: 850

Alabama A&M University’s College of Engineering, Technology and Physical Sciences has a specialty laboratory in nano-electronics for development and utilization of micro devices. The computer science department is developing ways to analyze fault trees in embedded missile guidance systems, while other students have buried sensors into concrete to help the Alabama Department of Transportation monitor the condition of bridges and other infrastructure.

AAMU has four-year programs in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science and technology.

AAMU also offers industrial technology. All programs lead to a bachelor’s of science degree in the specified discipline.

For more information, call Dean Chance Glenn at (256) 372-5855, or e-mail him at chance.glenn@aamu.edu.

Florida A&M university-Florida State university college of Engineering Terri Norton, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Terri Norton earned a bachelor’s of science degree in civil engineering at Florida State University. She went on to earn a master’s of science and a doctorate in civil engineering at Florida A&M University.

She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where her research focuses on the effects natural hazards have on civil structures, disaster debris management and sustainability.

In August 2013, she will be promoted to associate professor with tenure. Norton is also an active member of several professional organizations, including the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

FAMu-FSu college of Engineering Established: 1982 Engineering Enrollment: 2,300

The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering began in 1982 with the special legislated mandate to graduate women and other underrepresented groups in engineering fields. Although www.blackengineer.com

the FAMU- FSU College of Engineering has been in existence for only 30 years, the joint institution of Florida A&M University and Florida State University has demonstrated great success in educating engineers, implementing outreach activities to K-12 students, and conducting research to fulfill the needs of society. The college occupies two state-of-the art-buildings with more than 200,000 square feet of space.

An additional building has been planned and will provide 80,000 square feet of instructional and research space. These facilities have become the academic home to more than 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students.

Degrees Offered: Chemical: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Biomedical: M.S., Ph.D. Civil: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Electrical: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Computer: B.S. Industrial: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Mechanical: B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Associated centers and institutes include: Applied Superconductivity Center Center for Advanced Power Systems Center for Intelligent Systems Controls and Robotics Energy and Sustainability Center Florida Center for Advanced Aero-propulsion Future Renewable Electrical Energy and Management Systems Center High Performance Materials Institute Institute for Energy Systems, Economics and Sustainability The Aeropropulsion, Mechatronics and Energy building opened in March 2012.

Yaw D. Yeboah is dean of the unique FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, where he oversees degree programs in biomedical, chemical, civil, environmental, computer, electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering. The college has more than 80 faculty educating 2,500 students and conducting cutting-edge research with an annual expenditure of about $20 million that is impacting the economic development of the state.

Hampton university School of Engineering and Technology Jada Quann

Director Supply Chain Management Merck Manufacturing Division

Hampton University graduate Jada Quann earned a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering. For nearly 20 years, Quann has worked in various leadership capacities in the manufacturing division, supporting vaccines, pharmaceutical and biologics production. She has played USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 23

Spotlight on HBCU Schools and alumni Hampton university School of Engineering and Technology (continued) key roles in facility startups, launched numerous products, and developed many technical and business processes to improve productivity.

Quann is currently a director in the Women’s Health Franchise in the Merck manufacturing division, where she leads crossfunctional teams and manages global supply chains for products grossing more than $600 million. Her responsibilities include portfolio management, lifecycle strategy, new products planning and operational effectiveness. As a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Quann uses her skills to solve complex problems and improve efficiency in her work.

Shayla Sawyer, Ph.D.

students to become air traffic controllers, airport and airline managers, and commercial airline pilots. The Architecture Department is focused on urban design at the water’s edge in areas like Hampton Roads, New Orleans and other coastal communities in the U.S. and abroad. The architecture and engineering programs are leading a team with Old Dominion University that is competing as a finalist in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013 competition.

For more information, contact Dean Eric Sheppard at (757) 728-6970 or eric.sheppard@hampton.edu.

Howard university college of Engineering, Architecture and computer Sciences

Professor, Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering Department

Established: 1912 Engineering Enrollment: 592

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The college started off 100 years ago with civil, mechanical and electrical engineering as well as architecture. In recent years, it added computer engineering and computer science.

CEACS offers studies leading to a bachelor’s of science degree in chemical, civil and environmental, electrical and computer, and mechanical engineering, as well as systems and computer science, and architecture. Graduate programs can lead to a master’s degree in all fields of undergraduate study and a doctorate in electrical, computer and mechanical engineering are available. Graduate programs in material science and atmospheric sciences are also offered.

For more information, contact Dean James Mitchell at (202) 806-6565, or visit http://www.howard.edu/ceacs/departments.

Shayla Sawyer attended Hampton University, where she earned a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering.

During her time at Hampton, Sawyer was a member of the honors college, a Merit scholar and a two-time Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) basketball champion. After Hampton, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Today, Sawyer is a professor in the Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her research includes the development of optoelectronic sensors and systems, primarily in the blue/ultraviolet wavelength range. Sawyer’s overall research goal is aimed at developing and characterizing novel sensors with consideration of systems that require sensitivity and/or selectivity to bring quantitative measurements in typically qualitative worlds.

Hampton university School of Engineering and Technology Established: 1985 Engineering Enrollment: 120

The School of Engineering and Technology at Hampton University awards bachelor’s degrees in chemical, electrical and computer engineering. The programs are small but have a proven track record of achieving academic excellence. HU Engineering alumni can be found in leadership positions in industry, government and military, and attend and teach at top engineering graduate schools. Faculty members are conducting research in exciting topics of national interest in energy, transportation infrastructure, the environment, sensor and computer networks, reverse engineering and material characterization.

The school also offers bachelor’s degrees in aviation and a master’s degree in architecture. The Aviation Department trains 24 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

Jackson State university college of Science, Engineering and Technology The College of Engineering was established 12 years ago and joined the 45-year-old School of Science and Technology.

The young school of engineering opened a $22 million, 90,000-square-foot academic building in 2008.

Engineering Enrollment: 560 The School of Engineering at Jackson State University provides students with undergraduate and graduate programs in civil, environmental, computer, telecommunications and electrical engineering, plus computer science programs.

For more information contact Dean Richard Alo at (601) 979-2153, or email him at richard.a.alo@jsums.edu.

Morgan State university School of Engineering Established: 1984 Enrollment: 800

Morgan State University’s Clarence Mitchell School of Engineering got accredited by ABET in 1988. It started with electrical engineering and added civil and industrial engineering the second year. On offer now are civil, electrical and computer, www.blackengineer.com

Spotlight on HBCU Schools and alumni Morgan State university School of Engineering (continued) and industrial and systems engineering, as well as information systems, bio-informatics, medical technology, architecture and environmental design programs. The college does research for NASA, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army and Navy, Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the private sector.

For more information, call Dean Eugene DeLoatch at (444) 885-3231 or email him at eugene.deloatch@morgan.edu.

North carolina A&T State university college of Engineering Enrollment: 1,800

The College of Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University has come a long way since the days when it was the Colored School for Mechanics. The college now ranks in the top five among the state’s universities in funded research. One of its most notable projects is one in which A&T students designed and put material around Charlotte Motor Speedway that absorbs shocks so when there are crashes, there is less damage to the race car and it is safer for the drivers.

The college has bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. programs distributed across six departments, including architectural and bio-environmental, chemical, biological and bioengineering, civil, computational science and engineering, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering, and mechanical engineering.

For more information, contact Dean Robin Coger at (336) 334-7500 or email rncoger@ncat.edu.

Norfolk State university college of Science, Engineering and Technology The College of Science, Engineering and Technology, formerly known as the School of Science and Technology, aims to transform Norfolk State University to a science and technology powerhouse. Two centers of excellence have been established to support the S&T mission: The Center for Material Research and the NSU Institute for Information Assurance are engaged in cutting-edge research and provide many opportunities.

For more information, call Dean Larry Mattix at (757) 8232607 or email him at lmattix@nsu.edu.

Prairie View A&M university roy G. Perry college of Engineering Established: 1947 Enrollment: 1,000

continues to be in the top 10 producers of Black engineering graduates. The U.S. Army has developed a Center for Battlefield Communications within the electrical engineering program. In 2005, the college added a new electrical engineering building valued at $12 million. Research opportunities come from the U.S. Army and other government agencies, as well as corporations such as General Motors and Texas Instruments.

More than 100 U.S. companies actively recruit within the college throughout the year.

Undergraduate programs at Prairie View’s Roy G. Perry College of Engineering are chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, computer science, electrical engineering technology, and computer engineering technology. Graduate programs are also offered in computer engineering and computer science, computer information systems, and electrical engineering.

For more information, contact Dean Kendall Harris at (936) 261 9956 or ktharris@pvamu.edu.

Southern university and A&M college of Engineering Established: 1957 Enrollment: 700

The Southern University and A&M College of Engineering (COE) have four-year programs in civil and environmental, electrical, and mechanical engineering, leading to a bachelor’s degree. In addition, a four-year program also is offered in electronics engineering technology, leading to a bachelor’s of science degree. All programs are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the ABET. There are four strategic areas of significant research to maximize usage of facilities and human resources. These research areas are:

• • • •

Computation, communication and information Advanced materials Nanomaterials, nanoscience and devices Energy and the environment

Much of the ongoing research in the cited research areas is closely aligned with the national research agenda as well as with Southern University’s strengths and priorities. The research activities in these four areas have strongly influenced curriculum, facilities and faculty hiring. The COE continues to support existing research programs that support its mission and goals.

The college also is the home of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence Program in Environmental Engineering and the Louisiana Optical Network Infinitive (LONI) Institute, an inter-university research collaboration among six Louisiana universities. These programs have contributed to improving the college’s infrastructure and student involvement in research.

For more information contact Dean Habib Mohamadian at (225) 771-5290 or habib_mohamadian@subr.edu.

Prairie View’s College of Engineering graduated the first Black female engineer in the state of Texas in 1959 and www.blackengineer.com

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 25

Spotlight on HBCU Schools and alumni George l. Davis

Tennessee State university charles Flack

Managing Consultant and IT Network Services Specialist IBM

Charles Flack earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Tennessee State University (TSU).

He then went on to earn his master’s in electrical engineering at Syracuse University. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Biblical education from Beulah Heights University. With more than 29 years at IBM, his work experience includes research and development, marketing and sales, IT services, IT/Enterprise architecture, consulting and people management.

Charles manages a team of 18 network architects and IT specialists. He also is responsible for new business development and revenue attainment within IBM Global Technology Services in the Integrated Communications Services practice. He is a service professional, a managing consultant, a dual-certified professional infrastructure consultant and an IT network services specialist. Within his first year at IBM, Charles became one of the lead IBM recruiters for TSU. Today, he continues to recruit TSU students and graduates for IBM employment.

Georgia Dumas Whiting

Manager of Human Resources Information Services Operations Support FedEx Express

Georgia Dumas Whiting is manager of Human Resources Information Services Operations Support at FedEx Express. Georgia joined FedEx in 1985 as a senior engineer at the Memphis World hub in Memphis, Tenn.

A promotion moved her to Atlanta, Ga., where she eventually took the opportunity to assist the division in developing and establishing metrics to evaluate HR’s impact on the company’s key performance indicators in people, service and profit. Under her leadership, significant labor savings were realized. Whiting is a proud alumna of Tennessee State University, where she completed her undergraduate education.

She also has a master’s in business administration with a concentration in finance from Clark Atlanta University.

26 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

Vice President/Chief Technical Officer Ultimate Progress Incorporated

In 1981, George Davis graduated from Tennessee State University with a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering. He is currently the president of the Tennessee State University Engineering Alumni Association.

Throughout his career, Davis has worked at Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo, Calif., as a senior staff engineer. He has also worked as an assistant department director (engineering) for the Center for Telecommunication and Video at the University of Tennessee. He is currently the vice president and chief technical Officer of Ultimate Progress Incorporated.

Tennessee State university Enrollment: 600

Tennessee State University’s College of Engineering has developed partnerships with General Motors, Raytheon, Boeing, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It does state-of-the-art research in areas from intelligent transportation systems to environmental restoration.

The college has done extensive environmental research for GM and Chrysler on how they dispose of paint and other substances.

It also has a pre-college program that starts at the kindergarten level. Studies include aeronautical and industrial technology, civil and architectural engineering, computer science, electrical, computer and information systems engineering, mechanical, manufacturing, and biomedical engineering.

For more information, contact Dean S. Keith Hargrove at (615) 963-5401 or skhargrove@tnstate.edu.

Tuskegee university college of Engineering Paul Jones

Director of Global Engineering (Retired) Proctor & Gamble

In 1973, Paul Jones graduated from Tuskegee University with a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering. Since then, Jones has received the Tuskegee University Engineering Alumnus of the Year Award three times. He has also won the Tuskegee University www.blackengineer.com

Spotlight on HBCU Schools and alumni Tuskegee university college of Engineering (continued) Distinguished Service Award and the Tuskegee National Alumni Association Merit Award.

Jones spent a large amount of his working career at Proctor and Gamble (P&G). In his 32 years with the company, he served in many positions. When he retired, he was the director of global engineering. In this position, Jones’ work included responsibility for engineering organizations in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as a budget exceeding $100 million annually. During his retirement, Jones has been doing a lot to stay busy and give back to his community, which includes serving as a board member of New Communities, a nonprofit community development organization, and leading the Tuskegee University Engineering Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund Committee.

Tuskegee university college of Engineering Established: 1897 Enrollment: 800

Engineering, architecture and building science were accredited in 1892 at Tuskegee. The College of Engineering, Architecture and Physical Sciences offers a range of bachelor’s programs in aerospace science, chemical, electrical, materialsscience, and mechanical engineering, as well as aerospace studies, aero technology, aviation science, military science, and construction science and management.

For more information, contact Dean Legand Burge Jr. at (334) 727-8356 or lburge@mytu.tuskegee.edu.

university of the District of columbia School of Engineering and Applied Sciences As a student in SEAS, you will experience bachelor’s degree programs in computer science, civil engineering, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering that are nationally accredited by ABET. For more information, contact Dean Devdas Shetty at (202) 274-5033 or devdas.shetty@udc.edu.

Virginia State university The mission of Virginia State University’s School of Engineering, Science and Technology is to provide quality undergraduate and graduate education in engineering, engineering technology, mathematics, natural sciences, computer science, industrial technology and education, and to produce graduates who are well prepared to practice in their fields of studies and/or to pursue advanced education.

For more information, contact Dean Keith Williamson at (804) 524-8989, ext. 1141, or kwilliamson@vsu.edu.

www.blackengineer.com

AMIE BOArD MEMBErS The deans of Abet-accredited Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in conjunction with the corporate-academic alliance members of Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE) select Top Supporters of HBCU and other minorityserving institutions.

Boeing Dr. Dianne Chong Director, Material & Process Technology career communications Group, Inc. Tyrone Taborn, President and CEO chrysler Byron Kearney Retired Vice President, Scientific Labs and Proving Grounds constellation Energy Darryl Stokes Vice President, Engineering and Standards corning, Inc. Mark D. Vaughn, Ph.D. Manager, Technical Talent Pipelining lockheed Martin Michael Gordon (AMIE Chairman) Vice President, Engineering and Technology raytheon company Amanda Goodson Director, Information Technology Siemens Hulas King, Director Global Strategic Partnerships u.S. Army corps of Engineers James Dalton, PE, SES Chief, Engineering and Construction u.S. Department of Energy Malika Hobbs (AMIE Secretary-Treasurer) National Nuclear Security Administration - Office of Outreach and Diversity Virginia State university Dr. Keith Williamson Acting Dean, School of Engineering, Science and Technology Alabama A&M university Dr. V. Trent Montgomery Dean, School of Engineering and Technology Florida A&M-Florida State universities Dr. Reginald Perry Associate Dean, College of Engineering Dr. Eugene M. Deloatch (Member-At-large) Dean, School of Engineering Morgan State University David Garnett (Member–at-large) President, iAM Solutions

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 27

MARK YOUR

CALENDAR

FebRUARY

5–9

2014

BEYA STEM Global Competitiveness Conference Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Washington, DC

Don’t miss this historic event! www.beya.org

For more information, call us at 410-244-7101.

2013 Top Supporters of

HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS

AGGiE PRiDE!

by Lango Deen ldeen@ccgmag.com

T

Tim Atwell

Senior vice president, business executive-technology, ATM Bank of America

www.blackengineer.com

im Atwell, senior technology executive for Bank of America’s 16,000 ATMs, earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1994.

“We have a number of executives who graduated from A&T, so I’m proud and happy to say, and even shout out, ‘Aggie pride!’”

Atwell says.

“In IT, as well as our supply chain management function within technology and across our lines of business, we have a real good diversity of A&T graduates in Bank of America.”

Atwell says the bank has multiple partnerships with educational institutions around the country, including historically Black college and university, North Carolina A&T. “I was just there couple of months ago interviewing for internships in the College of Engineering and School of Technology, as well as in the business school,” Atwell says. “We’re looking for folks who can take a look at us, because a lot of folks don’t think of technology when they look at banks, and I’d debate the bank is technology. At the end of the day, if you don’t have technology in the bank, you don’t have much of a bank.”

uSBE&IT I summer 2013

29

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS

aggIe prIde (cONtiNuED) Since Atwell joined Bank of America in 2005, he has provided e-commerce technology solutions to drive online sales for deposits products. Three years on, he was service delivery executive for savings and investments, as well as deposit product innovation lines of business. In this role, he was responsible for technology activities to build balance growth, increase revenue and deliver deposit products with speed to market.

Currently, as senior technology executive for Bank of America’s ATM channel, he is responsible for delivering customer-focused, self-service technology solutions. His additional responsibilities include vendor management, and software and hardware reliability on more than 16,000 ATMs. He also is leading critical technology efforts aligned to the new consumer strategy to transform the bank’s retail and distribution model.

“We’re looking to bring on internships this summer,” Atwell explains. “We had [A&T] interns last year. In my ATM organization, a gentleman from A&T will be working with my team directly.”

Executives like Atwell are also guiding the success of the young professionals in affinity groups such as the bank’s Black Professional Group (BPG).

“BPG helps connect the dots,” he says. “It brings information to the forefront in a series of career management and professional development webinars, with internal experts to mentor, coach and lecture on how to manage your career. “ There are unspoken and unwritten rules within a culture we tend to call out, so they get it―a professional perspective, networking. Senior levels across multiple functions share personal career stories―those things they did well, as well as some of the pitfalls to help folks navigate around those as they grow into their careers,” he explains.

BPG also plays a role in local schools judging senior projects in multiple disciplines, he says. “We at Bank of America go into the community using what we understand about what customers are looking for today—the ever-changing landscape of the economy and marketplace, and what type of innovation and ingenuity we know it takes in order to stay ahead in the marketplace. We take that with us as we see these high school students working on going to the next level or into the next chapters of their lives.”

30 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

Why are the HBCU Engineering Schools Important?

Why they deserve support froM puBLIc, prIvate and non-profIt groups

By Frank McCoy

T

he annual US Black Engineer & Information Technology article spotlighting the Top Corporate and Government Supporters of the Historically Black College & Universities (HBCU) Engineering Programs often opens with the above question, and an answer that should be self-evident. The fact that it isn’t says something about the competition among higher educational institutions for research funding and paying students.

While no program can be complacent, the prospective and current students, and alumni of HBCU engineering programs, celebrate their schools’ uniqueness.

In the early 1900s, Howard University began providing engineering instruction and formalized its program in 1911, founding the first HBCU undergraduate engineering school. Today, the HBCU engineering schools provide students with an embracing atmosphere, intellectual rigor, world-class facilities and a network of influential alumni that are leaders in every engineering discipline.

The Advancing Minorities Interest in Engineering (AMIE) organization, which grew out of a 1992 initiative

by Abbott Laboratories, lists 14 fully accredited HBCU engineering schools.

greater, But stILL sLIght, representatIon This article’s goal is to first offer statistical background about the engineering undergraduate and graduate alumni of the HBCU schools, then, demonstrate the expanding and diverse importance of an HBCU engineering education by spotlighting HBCU Black Engineer of the Year award winners.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines engineering as “the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people.”

Great. Unfortunately, this country graduates an insufficient number of American-born engineers to do so. In response, last December, the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), released “A Letter on STEM Education for America’s Parents.”

One sentence conveys its gist.

The panel’s focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education was “not because other fields are unimportant, but rather because excellences in STEM will, to a large degree, form the basis of our children’s ability to obtain jobs, to defend themselves in a dangerous world and to live healthy, happy, rewarding lives.”

Diving into some data, Lawrence Flowers wrote a commentary for “Diverse Issues in Higher Education” about minority STEM opportunities.

Flowers, an assistant professor of microbiology at Fayetteville State University, said, that while Black graduate students have earned more science and engineering master’s degrees than other underrepresented groups lately, there is room for growth.

In 2009, Flowers said that African-Americans earned 9.5 percent of the science and engineering master’s degrees, compared with Hispanics, who earned 6.7 percent of those degrees, and the 0.6 percent of master’s degrees earned by American Indian/ Alaska Natives. The majority of the degrees were received by White and Asian-Americans.

www.blackengineer.com

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS

“STEM will to a large degree form the basis of our children’s ability to obtain jobs.”

- A Letter on STEM Education for America’s Parents The doctoral level revealed a similar pattern. “In 2009, African-Americans earned 1,041 sciences and engineering doctoral degrees, Hispanics earned 1,098 sciences and engineering doctoral degrees, and American Indian/Alaska Natives earned 120 science and engineering doctoral degrees,” he wrote.

The upside showed that historically underrepresented students made modest gains. However, the same year, “White students earned 61.7 percent of the science and engineering master’s degrees, and earned 14,552 science and engineering doctoral degrees.”

What have the hBcu engIneerIng schooLs done?

Robert Jennings, the 13th president of Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, knows what positive results HBCU STEM programs can produce.

In a January 2013 Diverse Issues in Education Higher Education article, “Sustaining the Future of HBCU,” Jennings said, “While these institutions represent only 2 percent of all American colleges and universities, they enroll about 12 percent of all Black college students and produce 25 percent of all Black college graduates. Data also shows that HBCU confer about 41 percent of all degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — disciplines where America is losing its edge the fastest. Additionally, about 38 percent of all Black healthcare professionals are graduates of HBCU.” The effectiveness of an HBCU education takes many forms.

The National Association of Historically Black Colleges and Universities cites that:

• • • • •

More than half of all Black professionals are graduates of HBCU. Nine of the top 10 colleges that graduate the most Blacks who go on to earn Ph.D.s are HBCU. Seventy percent of African-American dentists earned degrees at HBCU. Spelman College and Bennett College produce more than 50 percent of the nation’s Black female doctorates in all science fields Xavier University is leading nationally in placing African-Americans into medical school.

That’s not all. An April 2013 article by Matthew Lynch, “Diverse Conversations: Top 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities of 2012-’13,” showed the STEM power of HBCU. The department chair/associate professor of education at Oklahoma’s Langston University wrote that:

www.blackengineer.com

• •

•

Florida A&M University is the No. 1 producer of Blacks holding doctorates in engineering and natural sciences.

Jackson State University, whose Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering program has a new biomedical engineering track, is the No. 4 school in educating Blacks in biomedical and biological sciences.

In 2009, North Carolina A&T opened a Sustainable Infrastructure Materials (SIM) Laboratory that incorporates transportation engineering, soil/foundation engineering, construction materials and structural engineering to produce top-level research to help reduce the carbon footprint.

Successes such as those led Lynch in an email to say that HBCU engineering programs, despite being likely to have students from academically or economically challenged background, “do an outstanding job of producing engineering graduates who can compete with students from the best schools.

HBCU engineering programs have a reputation for immersing undergraduate students in research, which leads many to pursue graduate degrees in STEM. Overall, HBCU engineering programs are very effective and have much to teach other universities about helping underserved populations succeed in STEM.”

hBcu engIneerIng schooLs: What have you done for us LateLy? a Lot. The strength of the 14 HBCU engineering undergraduate and graduate programs is demonstrated by perusing the past lists of Black Engineer of the Year awardees. Not all attended HBCU engineering school programs, like those below from 2007 to 2013, but those who did are stars. Caveat: Some of these leaders may have new assignments.

2013 Professional Achievement - Government Omarr Tobias Operations Officer 2nd Naval Construction Regiment Civil Engineer Corps U.S. Navy B.S. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina A&T University Professional Achievement - Government Roy Foreman Electrical Engineer Manager Northrop Grumman Corporation B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Alabama A&M University Special Recognition Honors Nathan Raen Brooks, Ph.D. Electro Physicist Engineer/Scientist The Boeing Company Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Florida A&M University

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 31

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS 2013 (cONtiNuED) Timothy R. Brown Senior Project Manager/Civil Engineer U.S. Army Corps of Engineers B.S. in Civil Engineering from Florida A&M University Justin C. Lee Weapons Integration Engineer Air Force Research Laboratory B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Tuskegee University Haile Lindsay, Ph.D. Thermal Engineer U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina A&T University Carolyn L. Nicols Director and Program Manager Australia F/A-18F Super Hornet and EZ18G Programs The Boeing Company B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Howard University Albert E. Sweets Jr. Principle Innovative STEM Solutions, LLC B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Morgan State University Corlis D. Murray Senior Vice President of Quality Assurance Regulatory and Engineering Services Abbott Laboratories B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Southern University

2012 Most Promising Engineer - Government Cedric V. Bazemore Project Engineer U.S. Army Corps of Engineer B.S. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina A&T University Outstanding Technical Contribution Walter N. Reuben Test and Evaluation Manager U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command B.S. in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina A&T University Yvette Burke Senior Project Manager 32 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

The strength of the 14 HBCU engineering undergraduate and graduate programs is demonstrated by perusing the past lists of Black Engineer of the Year awardees.

CH2M Hill B.S. in Civil Engineering from Morgan State University Christine Earle Civil/Structural Engineer Black & Veatch B.S. in Civil Engineering from Howard University Kelvin Woods, Ph.D. Technical Line Manager The MITRE Corporation B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tuskegee University Christina L. Brantley Experimental Developer (Nanostructure Devices) Electronics and Computer Technology Division Weapons Integration Directorate U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee State University

2011 Ira Dorsett Structural Engineer U.S. Army Corps of Engineers B.S. in Civil Engineering from Jackson State University

Howard Miller III Business Development Manager Northrop Grumman B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Degree from Tuskegee University

2009 Veronica L. Nelson Manager, Career Pathways Program Northrop Grumman M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University Oscar Barton, Jr. Professor and Chairman Mechanical Engineering U.S. Naval Academy Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University Henry E. Jeffress III Senior Micro electric Design Engineer Northrop Grumman B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Morgan State University Trena Lilly Board: Military Operations Research Society JHU APL B.S. in Engineering Mathematics from North Carolina A&T University

Darrell Durst VP, Cyber Solutions, Lockheed B.S. in Mathematics and M.S. Degree in Electrical Engineering from Howard University

2008

Bryan Green Engineer Northrop Grumman B.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Computer Information and Systems Engineering from Tennessee State University

Arthur George Senior Vice President Texas Instruments B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Southern University

Oliver Leslie Boeing B.S. in Electronics Engineering Alabama A&M University

www.blackengineer.com

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS 2008 (cONtiNuED) George Reynolds Director Northrop Grumann B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University Charles R. Bridges, Jr. Associate Booz Allen B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Morgan State University Rickey Shyne NASA B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee State University Terrence Mosley President Orleans Holdings, LLC B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Southern University

2007 James C. Dalton, SES Chief of Engineering and Construction

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers B.S. in Architectural Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University Deans’ Award Reggie White Aerospace Engineer Naval Air Systems Command U.S. Navy B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University When asked why the nation’s private, public and non-profit STEM-related organizations should support HBCU STEMoriented programs, Langston University Professor Lynch had a ready answer. “College attendance has become less of a privilege and more of a necessity in the contemporary workforce. This cultural shift is a reflection of President Obama’s goal of having the largest percentage of college graduates out of all the countries in the world by 2020. Championing HBCU STEM programs is vital to the future growth and diversification of our country’s economy and to the success of the president’s plan. The nation’s private, public and non-profit STEM-related organizations need to form stronger bonds with the HBCU to increase the workforce pipeline, especially in the STEM fields.”

2013 top corporate and governMent supporters of hBcu engIneerIng schooLs • Abbott Laboratories

• Comcast

• Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE)

• Corning Incorporated

• Aerotek

• Cytec Industries

• Air Force Research Lab

• Dominion Power

• Alabama Power

• Dow Chemical

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

• Entergy

• Altria Group Inc.

• INROADS

• Exelon Corporation

• Amcom Software

• Intel Corporation

• ExxonMobil

• Architecture Research Office

• Florida Department of Education

• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

• AT&T

• Ford Motor Company

• Johnson & Johnson

• ATK Aerospace Group

• Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education

• Johnson Controls

• BAE Systems • Barton Malow Construction

• General Dynamics

• Lockheed Martin

• Battelle

• General Electric Foundation

• Louisiana Board of Regents

• Booz Allen Hamilton

• General Electric

• Bosch

• General Motors

• Louisiana Department of Transportation

• British Petroleum (BP)

• Golden Leaf Foundation

• Louisiana Space Consortium

• Caterpillar Inc.

• Harris Corporation

• Malcolm Pirnie

• Chevron

• Hewlett-Packard

• MeadWestvaco Foundation

• Chrysler Group LLC

• Huntington Ingalls

• Merck

• Claire Booth Luce Foundation

• IBM

• Merck Partnership for Giving

34 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

• Cummins Inc.

• L-3 Communications

www.blackengineer.com

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS

one Million american engineers short HBcu take a Stand

E

ngineering educators called on the government to provide resources to help the United States meet its goal of producing approximately one million more college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) over the next decade.

The HBCU Engineering Deans Roundtable at the 2013 BEYA STEM Global Competitiveness Conference, held in Washington in February, focused on the report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, “Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.”

The report found that today, less than 40 percent of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete college with a STEM degree. It also found that increasing retention of STEM majors to 50 percent would, alone, generate

By Lango Deen three-quarters of the targeted one million additional STEM degrees over the next decade by increasing the annual number of graduates with bachelor or associate degrees in STEM fields to about 370,000 from the current 300,000.

Bill Brown, moderator of the event, highlighted the strong track record set by HBCU engineering deans in producing more than

Bill Brown

• Missile Defense Agency

• Shell

• MITRE

• Siemens

• U.S. Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems

• Morgan Stanley

• Simio LLC

• U.S. Coast Guard

• NASA

• State Farm

• U.S. Department of Army

• National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA)

• Stihl

• U.S. Department of Defense

• SynTech Inc.

• U.S. Department of Energy

• National Institutes of Health

• Texas Instruments

• U.S. Department of Education

• National Science Foundation

• The Boeing Company

• National Security Agency

• The Freelon Group Inc.

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security

• Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)

• The MITRE Corporation

• U.S. Department of Transportation • U.S. Geological Survey

• Norfolk Southern

• The Proctor & Gamble Fund of Greater Cincinnati Foundation

• Northrop Grumman

• The Riversville Foundation

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory

• Toyota

• Office of Naval Research

• Union Pacific

• Parsons Brinkerhoff

• UPS

• Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne

• U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission • U.S. Department of Transportation

• Raytheon Company

• U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center

• Rockwell Automation

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

• Virginia Department of Transportation

• Rockwell Collins

• U.S. Army Research Laboratory

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

• Rolls Royce

• U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command

• Whiting & Turner Construction

• U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command

• Xerox Foundation

• Procter & Gamble

• Salesforce Foundation • Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

www.blackengineer.com

• U.S. Marines • U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) • U.S. Navy

• Xerox Corporation

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 35

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS 30 percent of the nation’s Black The MDA is engineers. “With limited resources, a research, they are taking young men and development, women, from all walks of life, and acquisition and turning them into national and agency within international assets,” he said, while the Department introducing the event’s sponsor, the of Defense.

Its Missile Defense Agency. workforce includes Brown asked the 14 HBCU government engineering deans how they would civilians, military achieve increased retention of service members STEM majors on the scale required and contractor in the report. The strategy is based personnel in multiple in part on the reasons students give locations across the for abandoning STEM majors, United States. including uninspiring introductory courses, difficulty with the required math, and an academic culture in STEM fields sometimes not welcoming or attuned to members of groups underrepresented in STEM. They include women and minorities, who today constitute about 70 percent of college students but earn only 45 percent of STEM degrees.

Improve the first two years of steM education in college Devdas Shetty, dean and professor of the University of District of Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences says: “We may have to start looking at community colleges, because community colleges are doing well in all states. People go to community colleges because they cannot afford the tuition of four-year colleges, and some of them may not be qualified. But, during the process at community colleges, they get more interested in engineering, technology and science.

So, if four-year institutions granting bachelor’s degrees are in partnership (an articulation agreement) while students are in community colleges thinking about four-year programs, they can transfer into the four-year undergraduate degree.” Shetty joined UDC as dean in 2012, having served as a dean at Lawrence Technological Institute and the dean of research at the University of Hartford.

provide all students with the tools to excel Legand Burge, dean of the College of Engineering and professor of electrical engineering at Tuskegee University, invoked the sensationalism of the Super Bowl. A former dean at the Defense Systems Management College, vice commander of the Air Force Reserve Training Corps and a division chief of the National Security Agency, Burge is in a position to know.

“The Super Bowl was witnessed by most of the world,” he says. “The question is, ‘why?’ Sensationalism, sex and other.”

The issue, he observed, is that the amount of awareness of what’s important to the country really makes a difference. “It does mean resources. But I want to be able to do the same kind of ‘hype’ for STEM that I get at the Super Bowl and [get] the kind of resources to put that sort thing together.”

However, that’s only a piece of it, Burge says. “We need K-8 programs to put math, especially algebra, into a lot more students’ heads. Without doing that, you cannot get an engineer in the next four years or so. It’s resources, awareness, helping parents and celebrating intellectualism.”

36 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

legand Burge

Students with a 3.5 to 4.0 GPA in Tuskegee’s New Engineers Realizing Dreams for Society (NERDS) organization help the rest of campus to become leaders, Burge adds. “They’re pulling others up—it’s a K-20 problem.”

diversify pathways to steM degrees Another approach came from North Carolina A&T State University’s Robin Coger, dean of the College of Engineering.

A visionary leader who has played a vital role in assisting efforts to help the university in more successfully contributing to the economic competitiveness of the Triad region and the state, she is founder and director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering Systems at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is also a professor in the A&T’s Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Department within the William States Lee College of Engineering.

“Many of us are scientists and engineers,” Coger says. “So what are we doing to help those age groups that are interested in our field? As engineers, we often forget the PR [public relations] part of our jobs, so whether it’s talking to the class of your child or whether it’s you thinking about part of what your company does and putting on a display, it helps people to start thinking about those possibilities. It’s advocacy that as engineers we don’t do enough.”

Yaw Yeboah, Florida A&M University and Florida State University engineering dean, says, “I think the solution, if it is that important, then we need to put our money where our mouth is. It’s that simple. We need to put in the resources to make sure that happens. And that starts from the K-12 pipeline, making sure students get into math and science so they can continue on into engineering and sciences in college.” Yeboah was selected to succeed Ching-Jen “Marty” Chen, the college’s dean from 1992 to 2011 after a national, five-month search.

An earlier report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology made recommendations to better www.blackengineer.com

2013 Top Supporters of HBCU EnginEEring SCHoolS

HBcu Deans

prepare America’s K-12 students in STEM subjects and also to inspire those students—including girls, minorities and others underrepresented in STEM fields—to challenge themselves with STEM classes, engage in STEM activities outside the school classroom and consider pursuing careers in those fields.

Among the recommendations in the report, “Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) for America’s Future,” are that the federal government should:

• Recruit and train 100,000 great STEM teachers over the

next decade who are able to prepare and inspire students;

• Recognize and reward the top 5 percent of the nation’s

STEM teachers, by creating a STEM master teachers corps; • Create 1,000 new STEM-focused schools over the next decade; • Use technology to drive innovation, in part by creating an advanced research projects agency—modeled on the famously innovative Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—for education; • Create opportunities for inspiration through individual and group experiences outside the classroom; and • Support the current state-led movement for shared standards in math.

America is home to extraordinary assets in science, engineering and mathematics that, if properly applied within the educational system, could revitalize student interest and increase proficiency in these subjects and support an American economic renewal, the report said.

38 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

robin coger www.blackengineer.com

Since it began in 1986, BEYA has established a tradition of cultivating success through the seminars, workshops, exhibitions, networking and career fairs that are its essential elements.

leroy Daley, 2010 Black Engineer of the Year Award Modern Day Technology leader recipient, with STEM students

THE BEYA ExPERiEnCE BenefIts corporatIons and students

I

f anyone doubts the extraordinary benefits of bringing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professionals and the companies they represent together with students who are just beginning to immerse their lives in STEM, then they haven’t been to a Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) STEM conference.

Since it began in 1986, BEYA has established a tradition of cultivating success through seminars, workshops, exhibitions, networking and career fairs that are its essential elements.

Employers such as Chrysler, The Aerospace Company, Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Coast Guard, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Wal-Mart and GE Healthcare are just a few of the many that return to BEYA year after year to recruit talent for internships and permanent positions, as www.blackengineer.com

well as participating in information sharing.

And the benefits to upand-coming engineers, analysts, researchers, cyber security specialists, inventors and others Mary Waddell cannot be denied.

“It’s just an overall healthy environment,” says Mary Waddell, human resources generalist with The Aerospace Corporation, which provides independent technical and scientific research, development and advisory services to national security space programs.

Waddell said her firm has been associated with BEYA since 1996 and the value of the conferences and the caliber of

by Gale Horton Gay ghorton@ccgmag.com

the career expos keeps them coming back.

The Aerospace Corporation’s recruiting team attends BEYA STEM in search of interns and full-time hires.

Each year during the conference, the company’s president and chief executive officer, Wanda Austin, hosts a reception for the deans of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and selects students who have impressed recruiters at their booth.

“It exposes students and other professionals looking for opportunities to The Aerospace Corporation,” Waddell explains.

She adds that the conferences are also a good way for her company to stay in touch with promising students who they often first encounter at BEYA STEM. Each time those students return, recruiters are “keeping an eye on them for uSBE&IT I summer 2013

39

Revitalizing manufacturing through community colleges. siemens.com/goplm

Manufacturing critically lacks qualified technology trained professionals to fill open Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) related jobs. Siemens PLM software, through its Global Opportunities in PLM program, is helping by partnering with community colleges to jumpstart two-year Design Technology associate degree programs.

Learn how companies can partner with local community colleges to create and hire skilled workers. Siemens PLM Software and Iowa Western Community College have partnered to produce a free best-practice white paper to help you get started. For your free copy, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/communitycollege.

Answers for industry.

GoPLM_Community_College_7x10.indd 1

5/15/13 4:01:39 PM

“We hope they will have a great enough experience that they will want to devote their careers to Chrysler.”

- Renee Wolf, Chrysler Group LLC, describing participants of the 2013 BEYA conference who were offered internships future opportunities.” She noted that The Aerospace Corporation recently hired a Ph.D. candidate whom they first met at BEYA and were reacquainted with at another conference.

Waddell stresses that to get the most from the BEYA STEM conference requires becoming a participant.

“Take advantage of all the workshops,” she suggests. “Be sure [participants] talk to the representatives of the different companies. There is so much there. You have to have the BEYA experience…get fully engaged.”

For another company, numbers tell the story.

Chrysler’s commitment to the BEYA conference is evident by the number of recruiters it brought with it this year — 31.

Renee Wolf, corporate diversity manager for Chrysler Group LLC, says Chrysler has been supporting BEYA for nearly 20 years and it has been a “great experience.”

“We really did it up this year,” Wolf says, adding that of the 15 conferences Chrysler attends each year, BEYA is one of her favorites.

She says her company’s main objectives have been recruitment, communicating the renee Wolf company’s corporate culture and improving its relationship with HBCU. Wolf, who described Chrysler as “young and agile” and “growing, growing, growing,” pointed out that during the 2013 BEYA conference in Washington, D.C., Chrysler offered internships to 16 young people and 14 have accepted.

These paid interns (Chrysler doesn’t disclose salaries) are also given a housing stipend and are exposed to all aspects of what it would be like to be a full-time employee, she says.

The internships, which range from three to four months, are mainly located in Chrysler offices throughout the Midwest. The internships are mostly in technical areas, such as the engineering, information technology, manufacturing, powertrain and supplier quality groups.

Wolf says the students are given specific projects to work on that put their skills to work. They are monitored by a supervisor and given guidance. One student might work on helping to design a new taillight on a vehicle or assist with a project on the “soft side of engineering,” such as engineering planning and figuring out how many engineers it will take to build a specific vehicle, and how best to track and control those human resources, she explains.

“We hope they will have a great enough experience that they will want to devote their careers to Chrysler,” Wolf says.

Tavon Brooks, a graduate of Cornell University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, was recruited at BEYA STEM as a full-time employee and went into

www.blackengineer.com

Chrysler’s prestigious Leadership Development Program. In the program, individuals rotate through practically every corporate function. The program gives these select employees high visibility and steady access to the management team.

Wolf describes Brooks as a “knockout, star candidate.”

Brooks explains joining Chrysler as “stumbling” into a career-changing opportunity.

When Brooks attended the BEYA gala in 2011 to receive his Most Promising Engineer in Industry Award, Chrysler was one of the sponsors. After delivering his acceptance speech, Brooks chatted with a company manager who told him about the program. At the time, Brooks worked at Raytheon as a senior systems engineer in Integrated Defense Systems and “didn’t have a desire to leave.”

However, Chrysler made him an offer he couldn’t resist.

Now that Brooks is at the end of the two-year program, he’s discussing with Chrysler executives the area in which he would like to settle.

Brooks, 30, said his previous experience had been in the execution phases of engineering, however, now, his interests have shifted. “[The Leadership Development Program] allowed me to see the strategic planning side of the business,” says Brooks, explaining that’s where decisions are made about future vehicle production.

Brooks advises young people to approach the BEYA conference and other such events Tavon Brooks with an open mind.

“Attend the seminars. Learn as much as you can. Talk with people. You never know what connection you might make. I never thought I would be at Chrysler today,” he says.

Asked for advice for college students considering attending conferences such as BEYA, Wolf offered the following:

• Being there is key. She said nothing beats face-to-face meetings, which gives students the opportunity to make their resumes “pop” off the page. “No one speaks more loudly about your accomplishments as you,” Wolf says.

• Remember that every conversation at a conference is an opportunity to be recruited. It can take place during lunch, during a casual chat in a hallway or even before you arrive if you happen to be sitting next to a recruiter or company executive on a plane.

• Research the conference and the companies attending ahead of time.

Wolf says a common bond the students Chrysler has selected

USBE&it USBE&iti isUMMer sUMMer2013 2013 41

for internships share is the passion they clearly demonstrate during conversations and interviews.

“We want you to want to come here,” Wolf says. “We want people who have a love for the automotive industry, who have a desire to see Detroit succeed.”

Rod Carter, vice president and co-chairman of the scholarship committee for Black Professional Men, Inc. (BPM), says his group has been mentoring young African-American men and providing scholarships for the past 20 years. It also has been participating in BEYA conferences for 16 years.

The group trains the young men — the majority of whom are the first in their families to go to college — in how to be successful in college with an emphasis on time management and stress management. The scholarship recipients are expected to maintain a 3.0 or higher grade point average while they are in college.

“We hold them accountable,” Carter says.

The reasons they take high school seniors to the BEYA conference is to expose them to a broad group of AfricanAmerican men and women who have been successful, expose them to a high-tech environment and to develop their networking skills, Carter explains.

“You can be successful.

You can reach your goals,” is the message he says that BEYA conveys.

“When you go to BEYA, you are going to go places,” Carter says he tells the students.

Carter barely can contain his excitement in talking about BPM youth who have achieved Isaac richardson success through BEYA. Isaac Richardson is one of those success stories.

Richardson, 23, is an industrial engineer working at Boeing in Philadelphia, where he supports the H47 Sikorsky helicopter international production line.

The road to Richardson’s first professional job came after he got re-acquainted with an alumnus, from Morgan State University at a BEYA STEM conference, who told him about a business competition. That competition would be judged by Boeing personnel. Richardson participated and later applied for and was selected for a Boeing internship. He said he felt his involvement in the competition was one factor that helped him get the internship.

Richardson, a 2012 Student Athlete in STEM Award winner at BEYA, interned at Boeing in 2011 in Seattle and was hired full time by Boeing in January 2012.

“BEYA is a great networking and learning experience,” says Richardson, who began attending the BEYA STEM conferences during his sophomore year in college.

Through Black Professional Men, Richardson says he learned what it takes to get a job and how to maximize opportunities at conferences.

Emmanuel Cephas credits BEYA with not only teaching him what it takes to land internships, but also for keeping him inspired after the conference when he returned to school.

“That conference was the most inspiring experience I had undergone,” says Cephas about his first time at the event when 42 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

he was an undergraduate student. “It inspired me, motivated me and kept me going each semester at school.

Classes alone did not give me the motivation and drive to conquer my classes that the BEYA conference did.”

He admits that during his first time at BEYA, he was ill prepared and didn’t receive a single offer for an internship.

However, he took every bit of advice that was offered — tweaked his resume, improved Emmanuel cephas his attire, etc. — and returned the next year and received internship offers from every program for which he applied.

In 2004, Cephas was chosen for the Student Leadership Black Engineer of the Year Award. Of the award, he says, “It gave me a different kind of self-determination and perception to be in a STEM field.”

He is now a graduate of Frostburg State University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and of the University of Maryland, where he received a bachelor’s degree in physics.

Cephas, 30, is currently developing a start-up company and math education software designed to teach children how to solve equations using their body movement. He’s working on getting a patent for his product, called Miyagi, and expects to have a demo of it and have it user tested this summer.

Leroy Daley, 2010 Black leroy Daley Engineer of the Year Award Modern Day Technology Leader recipient, tells young people to think outside the box and not to underestimate themselves when pursuing internships and jobs. Many times students get it in their heads that they can’t do something or have too little experience to be considered for a position.

“Never underestimate what your abilities and how a company may value them,” says Daley, adding that students should ignore the negative voice in their heads telling them they shouldn’t pursue an opportunity because they aren’t qualified.

“Make someone else make that call.”

He also said being passionate often makes an individual stand out more than pure knowledge.

“Do what you love and it will show,” says Daley, whose entry to corporate engineering attests to that.

Daley, 30, graduated from the University of Delaware with bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He’s been working at Northrup Grumman for eight years, rising from junior engineer to systems engineer specializing in integration and testing.

While in college, he applied for a position in Northrup Grumman but didn’t get the job. However, later, he met some Northrup Grumman personnel visiting his school on a college tour and made such a strong impression on them that they offered him a job. www.blackengineer.com

Walmart is a top supporter of historically Black college and university engineering programs

DiVERSiTY SUPPORT AnD EngAgEmEnT OPPORTUniTiES AT BEYA STEm

by CCG Editorial Staff

L

eadership was on the mind of the world’s largest retailer at the 2013 BEYA STEM job fair. A visible Walmart executive presence was Fumbi Chima, vice president of International Integrations.

“We attract diverse talent through partnerships,” Chima says. “Walmart is engaged in campus recruiting that focuses on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), and we’re one of the biggest sponsor organizations of Thurgood Marshall.”

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) supports 80 percent of all students attending the nation’s HBCU. More than 90 percent of students who attend TMCF memberschools rely on financial aid in their pursuit of a degree. With 23,000 of them enrolled in undergraduate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, HBCU have just the talent employers like Walmart seek for internships and full-time positions.

Fumbi chima “STEM initiatives help us stay visible at HBCU and at the high school level,” says Chima, who also is active within the giant retailer’s affinity groups, such as its African-American Caucus and Women’s Resource Council. Chima is also a part of Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF), the only national organization dedicated to fostering executive talent among African-American technology professionals through career development, mentoring and networking opportunities.

A 20-year industry executive, Chima joined Walmart’s as an officer three years ago in its Information Systems Division.

In her current role, her responsibilities span across “acquiring organizations, doing acquisition evaluation, securing partnerships and integrating systems as we go to market,” she says. As VP of information systems, she led development for merchandising, marketing and enterprise systems. She also enhanced application delivery by creating a center of competence in Mexico and an organization to improve the system integration process using Brazil as a pilot. Chima saved Walmart millions in management of short, medium and long-term strategies for its global technology organization.

Nick Givens also is a vital part of Walmart’s global technology organization. Givens’ phenomenal intern experience framed the foundation for his 12year progression with Walmart. As Nick Givens the senior manager of security engineering in Walmart’s Information www.blackengineer.com

Systems Division, he became a “go-to” associate for improving operations and back-room systems. In his most recent focus as senior manager of international compliance, Givens has been at the forefront of championing the evaluation and selection of systems geared toward accelerating IT gains throughout the international markets.

While at the University of Alabama, Givens trained as a project manager in an enterprise integration lab, and worked with other universities and high schools on joint projects to promote information and computer technology fields in the state of Alabama. Later, he spent a couple of summers at Walmart as an intern while he completed his bachelor’s degree in business administration, majoring in management information systems with computer science in component systems as a minor.

“I had an unparalleled experience as an intern,” Givens says.

He fit in so well with Walmart’s employee-friendly workplace culture, his managers looked to him as a potential hire for a fulltime position. “My managers kept in touch and even visited me on campus,” he recalls. “That made all the difference.”

Givens started as a programmer/senior programmer. Some of his key contributions include developing vendor supplier security systems that provided protection from unauthorized entry of electronic computing devices into all of Walmart facilities. He was also part of a core team that was responsible for creating J2EE web application using JNDI that manages all password resets changes.

Over the years, he has worked on a range of investigations relating to the theft of information resources, violation of information security polices and performing of vulnerability assessments for technology in Walmart stores. He has also provided leadership for the infrastructure security engineering team, working globally on security related issues as well as with various teams in security.

“We work hard to stay one step ahead to safeguard our organization and its reputation,” Givens says. His professional training and specialist technical and practical certification includes CISSP, CHSP, GESC and GSLC. “Technology turns quickly and it’s important to keep up on industry trends in security and compliance.”

As senior manager of security development and engineering in Walmart’s information systems division, he provided direction for the security engineering area, building talent and people development from a 12-person team contributing to the evolution of a security organization which, today, is more than 300 strong.

Currently, Givens’ job involves a heavy focus on security infrastructure with research and implementation of new and emerging technologies. He is responsible for development of all internet and network security for Walmart. Givens helps provide information technology solutions, as well as operational compliance for Walmart stores around the world.

“We weren’t there 11 to 12 years ago as far as building security and compliance,” Givens says on the phone from the corporation’s Information Systems Division in Bentonville, Ark. “But now, everyone understands the role security and compliance plays to protect our system environment.”

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 43

Hall of Fame 2013

Hall of Fame inductees are past winners of STEM honors awarded during the annual BEYA STEM Global competitiveness conference, Women of color STEM conference, and Minorities in research Science events.

Wanda M. austin

President and CEO of The Aerospace Corp.

2009 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr

Wanda Austin is president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, a leading architect for U.S. space programs. She assumed this position in January 2008. Previously, she was senior vice president (SVP) of the company’s National Systems Group, which supports the intelligence community in the acquisition, launch and operation of advanced technology space systems and their ground stations. She was also SVP of the Engineering and Technology Group, directing a staff of 1,000 engineers and scientists working in space-related disciplines. Austin is internationally recognized for her work in satellite and payload system acquisition, systems engineering and system simulation.

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics.

She is committed to inspiring the next generation to study STEM disciplines and make science and engineering their preferred career choices. Under her leadership, a number of national initiatives are supported by Aerospace Corp., including participation in MathCounts, US FIRST Robotics and Change the Equation. Austin earned a bachelor’s in mathematics from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., master’s degrees in systems engineering and mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, and a doctorate in systems engineering from the University of Southern California. www.blackengineer.com

ReaR adM. eleanoR V. Valentin

Senior Health Care Executive, U.S. Navy Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) Director, Military Health System Governance Transition Office 2010 WOMEN OF cOlOr STEM - TEcHNOlOGIST OF THE YEAr

Rear Admiral Valentin is the first female flag officer to serve as the director of the Navy Medical Service Corps. She earned bachelor’s degrees in zoology and psychology at the University of Washington and two public health master’s degrees in health policy and biostatistics at the University of Hawaii. She served in various leadership positions in military treatment facilities in San Diego, Calif., Norfolk, Va., Agana, Guam, Yokosuka, Japan, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In 2000, Valentin worked for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs as director of regional operations for the Military Health System’s health plan, known as TRICARE. Her subsequent assignments included executive officer, Naval Hospital Corpus Christi, Texas, commanding officer, Naval Hospital/Health Clinic Cherry Point, N.C., and chief of staff, Navy Medicine National Capital Area. In her first flag tour as commander of the Navy Medicine Support Command, she had responsibility for Navy Medicine activities in research, education and training, information systems, public health and logistics. In her current position, she directs several teams in the redesign of governance for the Military Health System that oversees the healthcare of more than 9.6 million beneficiaries.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 45

2013 HAll Of fAME ReaR adM. stephen W. Rochon

U.S. Coast Guard, (Retired) founding Member Stars and Stripes Committee

Rear Admiral Stephen Rochon is a retired officer with almost 40 years of public service.

He enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1970 and was promoted up the enlisted and officer ranks, where he developed a background in maritime safety, intelligence, personnel management, planning and interagency coordination.

As commander of Maintenance and Logistics-Atlantic, he was responsible for naval and civil engineering, financial management and contingency planning across 40 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He also served as the Coast Guard director of personnel management where he provided support for Coast Guard personnel following the 2005 hurricanes, ensuring they had housing and new job assignments.

On retirement in 2007, he was named director of the Executive Residence and usher at the White House by former President George W. Bush. The first African-American to hold the position, he ran the executive mansion for four years for presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, executing all major events at the White House and preserving the nation’s most historic house.

He returned to the Department of Homeland Security in 2011 to assist the U.S. Customs and Border Protection with developing a strategic program to help protect the nation’s borders. Rochon comes from a military family with members serving in nearly every branch. He graduated with a bachelor’s of science degree in business management from Xavier University, New Orleans, and a master’s degree in national resource strategy from the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

dennis copeland 2009 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr - PrOFESSIONAl AcHIEVEMENT IN INDuSTrY AWArD

Dennis Copeland retired as a principal information systems engineer in MITRE’s Homeland Security Center.

During his 35-year career, he served as technical manager for many of the company’s federal civilian work programs, including the General Services Administration and Social Security Administration. He led 46 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

a team assisting the Department of Homeland Security with analysis of alternative approaches to evolving the biometric system that is critical to validating and verifying entry and exit of foreign visitors to the United States, and in detecting terrorists and criminals. Copeland was honored in the Black Engineer of the Year Award Professional Achievement in Industry category for his contributions to the evolution of federal systems technology and acquisition-oriented processes. He has taught internal technology courses, published in technical journals and presented at conferences on expert systems. Copeland holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Maryland and a certificate in management in technology organizations from American University in Washington, D.C.

ReV. GWendolyn elizabeth boyd

Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics laboratory 1996 OuTSTANDING TEcHNOlOGY lEADEr

Gwendolyn Boyd is a graduate of Alabama State University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a double minor in physics and music. She earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Yale University, becoming the first African-American female to do so at the institution.

Boyd began her career at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) as an analyst for the navigation subsystem of Polaris, Poseidon and Trident nuclear submarines. She now serves as executive assistant to the chief of staff and manages the ATLAS Scholars programs, which recruits interns from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Boyd also sits on Tuskegee University’s Advisory Council for the College of Engineering, Architecture and Physical Science. She is a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and served as president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., which has more than 200,000 members in more than 950 chapters throughout the world. A few of her accomplishments during her tenure include endowment and payment of a $1 million scholarship in honor of its founders at Howard University. She also received a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish Project SEE (Science in Everyday Experiences) for middle school AfricanAmerican girls. This achievement earned the sorority United Nations “Non-Governmental Organization” status, making Delta Sigma Theta the second African-American organization to obtain this designation. “Gwendolyn E. Boyd Day” has been declared in nine cities throughout America. Recently, she earned a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in ministry from Howard University.

www.blackengineer.com

2013 HAll Of fAME olabisi boyle

Director, Engineering Planning and Technical Cost Reduction Chrysler Group llC 2012 WOMEN OF cOlOr STEM - MANAGErIAl lEADErSHIP IN INDuSTrY AWArD

Olabisi Boyle worked for the Ford Motor Company from 1995 through 2004 in a variety of engineering and manufacturing positions.

Since joining Chrysler, she has served as senior manager in strategy and product engineering, and was the director of powertrain product management and vehicle engineering planning and technical cost reduction.

Prior to her current position, she was chief engineer for the 2011 Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans. The Chrysler Town & Country won the JD Power “Best Initial Quality” award in the minivan segment. Her current responsibilities include managing Chrysler’s Engineering Research and Development budget, timing and resource management, as well as leading the engineering team to optimize material costs savings across all platforms. She was co-chair

of Chrysler’s Engineering Talent Management Committee, which focuses on career development for entry- and mid-level employees. She also co-chairs the Chrysler African-American Network, which supports recruitment, retention, mentoring and community service. Since 2006, she has been board member on the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, which provides STEM support in metropolitan Detroit. She holds bachelor’s degrees in industrial engineering from Columbia University (1988) and physics from Fordham University (1987).

She also has a master’s in mechanical engineering (1991) from Columbia University.

col. eRic GaRVin

Global Hawk Manager, Northrop Grumman 2011 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr - cOMMuNITY SErVIcE AWArD

Eric Garvin ran track and played basketball. He was inducted into his high school hall of fame and won a scholarship to the U.S. Air Force. His Air Force Academy Squadron won three consecutive “Outstanding Squadron” awards from 1979

Secure Your Nation’s Future and Grow Your Future,Too. Every day the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is working to make a difference. We are strengthening national defense in military technology, information assurance and homeland protection. We are advancing efforts in missile defense, chemical and biodefense and cyber operations. We are finding new ways to defeat Internet attacks on the electronic battlefields of the 21st century. We are stopping threats from above traveling at thousands of miles per hour – and we are looking for the right talent to keep us moving forward.

We are primarily seeking candidates with experience in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, cyber security, information systems, systems engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, applied math and applied physics to join our team of dedicated contributors. Eligibility requirements include U.S. citizenship. Applicants may be subject to a government security investigation and must meet the eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

Confront the nation’s toughest challenges and help shape the future at one of the nation’s premier engineering, research and development centers. Sound like a future meant for you? Visit our website: www.jhuapl.edu to find out more about your career at APL. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer that complies with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, as well as other applicable laws, and values diversity in its workforce.

Laurel, MD

www.blackengineer.com

www.jhuapl.edu USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

47

2013 HAll Of fAME to 1981. This is the most prestigious group award at the academy, presented annually to the top Squadron out of 40 competing squadrons with the best academic, athletic and military record.

Garvin graduated in 1981 with a bachelor’s in finance and a minor in engineering. After 26 years of service, he retired from the Air Force in 2007 as a colonel. During his tenure in the Air Force, Garvin acquired a master’s in national security strategy from the National War College, where he was a Distinguished Graduate. He also worked at the Department of State in the Political Military Bureau, where he served as Israeli, Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese Desk Officer. During his last assignment, he led development of the CV-22 Osprey aircraft, which is now serving in the Middle East. Upon his retirement from the Air Force, he began working for Northrop Grumman, where he serves as representative for one of its two flagship programs, Global Hawk. Garvin fervently believes in giving back. Whether it is feeding the homeless with the Salvation Army’s Grate Patrol, serving on the Phillips Charitable Organization Board (PCO), being Northrop Grumman’s lead for its Summer Aviation Camp Scholarship program, being a keynote speaker, orchestrating trips to the Air and Space Museum to attend the Northrop Grumman sponsored Black Pioneers in Aviation Event, Garvin does it all. Over the past 12 months, he awarded PCO grants totaling $153,500 to college students pursuing STEM careers, struggling single parents and wounded veterans in more than 17 states across our nation. Through his work on PCO, he is changing the lives of families, one family at a time. One of those personal stories was published in the Wall Street Journal on Jan 18.

Ruthie lyle

SaaS Technical Project Manager - Cloud Computing IBM Corporation 2010 WOMEN OF cOlOr STEM - TEcHNIcAl INNOVATION AWArD

Ruthie Lyle is the top Black female inventor in the United States.

Her contributions span technologies including smarter planet, green technologies, collaborative software, pervasive technologies and virtual worlds. Over eight years, she has accumulated more than 65 patents and more than 140 patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Additionally, she has 90-plus invention publications featured on IP.COM. Since joining IBM as a hardware engineer in 1999, Lyle has submitted more than 375 patent disclosure submissions covering hardware and software inventions. She defined and delivered a 1st Time Inventor Program that helps others capture their ideas and provides value to IBM. Intellectual property licensing is a significant business for IBM, with more than $1 billion in annual licensing revenue. She earned a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Northeastern University 48 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

in 1992. Two years later, she received a master’s degree in electrophysics at Polytechnic University. In 1998, she was awarded a doctorate in electrical engineering at Polytechnic University with the special distinction of being the first Black female to earn the degree since the inception of Polytechnic University in 1854.

Lyle also has completed two marathon races, more than five half marathons, and multiple 10K and 5K races.

steVen oGunWuMi

Research Manager, Crystalline Materials Research Group Corning Incorporated 2011 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr - OuTSTANDING TEcHNIcAl cONTrIBuTION AWArD

Steven Ogunwumi joined Corning in 1997 after earning a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Purdue University.

At Corning, he utilizes his material chemistry and catalysis expertise to advance research and development of new ceramic compositions for exhaust emissions remediation and other applications. In 2006, he received the Karl Schwartzwalder for Professional Achievement in Ceramic Engineering — the nation’s outstanding young ceramic engineering award — from the American Ceramic Society. He received the award for his work that resulted in Corning’s DuraTrap® AT product. He has also been recognized by the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCCHe) with the Lloyd Ferguson Young Scientist Award. He currently holds 21 granted U.S. patents with additionals pending, and several scientific publications. Additionally, he has more than 50 internal technical reports. He is a member of several professional groups, including the American Chemical Society, the American Ceramic Society, and the global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries (SAE).

saRita Rao

Vice President AT&T Corporation 2011 WOMEN OF cOlOr STEM - TEcHNOlOGIST OF THE YEAr

Sarita Rao is a technology professional. She leads a team that is working toward an effortless customer experience through net promoter initiatives across sales, product and operations.

Additionally, she is responsible for the AT&T Business Capital program and focused to ensure investments are aligned with www.blackengineer.com

2013 HAll Of fAME the strategic direction set for the business.

Previously, Rao led a billion-dollar sales team and managed a network sourcing program office, with associated governance structure, and cross-functional process interface.

Her responsibilities included comprehensive communication plans, plus performance tracking reports and scorecards for AT&T’s largest corporate deals. She landed a job with AT&T after graduating from Chicago’s DePaul University in 1990.

Since then, she has served as opportunity manager-developer and negotiator, senior sales manager, distribution manager and wholesale executive director. She also has held a number of vicepresidential positions, reporting to officers of AT&T. Rao has been responsible for a $23 billion network outsourcing market, and for architecture and implementation of a $7 billion agreement between AT&T and IBM — a historic, groundbreaking event that changed the outsourcing industry. Her current position was designed to allow her to bring her expertise to bear across the AT&T enterprise business — voice, video, data and Internet communications and professional services to businesses, consumers and government agencies. Rao earned an M.B.A. from Northwestern in 2002. She remains dedicated to the Chicago community, where she contributes to neighborhood charities focused on children.

John d. haRRis ii

Vice president and General Manager, Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services Raytheon Company 2010 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr

John Harris joined Raytheon in 1983 as a member of the Contracts Leadership Development Program. Over his thirty-year career he has served as deputy division manager of contracts for Electronic Systems and vice president (VP) of contracts for Raytheon Technical Services Company. Prior to his role at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, Harris was president of the Technical Services Company. He was previously VP of contracts and supply chain at Raytheon’s headquarters in Massachusetts, where he was responsible for the performance of both organizations, and for the development and implementation of global supply chain solutions in the service of customers. He also served as VP of Operations and Contracts for Raytheon’s former Electronic Systems business. Prior to the formation of Electronic Systems, he was staff executive reporting to the Raytheon chairman and CEO. Harris served as Raytheon’s Executive Diversity Champion from January 2007 to December

www.blackengineer.com

2008, leading the Executive Diversity Leadership team and providing direction for the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Harris serves on the NextGen Advisory Committee, the Board of the USO of Metropolitan Washington, D.C, and the National Advisory Council on Minority Business Enterprise with the U.S. Department of Commerce. He received a bachelor’s of science degree in business administration with concentrations in finance and operations from Boston University. He is also a graduate of Raytheon’s Advanced Management program.

daRRyl a. stokes

Dir., Engineering, Engineering and Standards Department Baltimore Gas & Electric Company 2007 BEYA PIONEEr AWArD WINNEr 2007-13 BlAck ENGINEEr OF THE YEAr AWArDS SElEcTION cOMMITTEE

Darryl Stokes completed a bachelor’s degree at Northeastern University in 1983, and earned a master’s in electrical power engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute a year later. In 1987, Stokes, then 26, became the first Black assistant to Baltimore Gas and Electric’s Distribution Division vice president. By 2007, Stokes was vice president of Engineering and Standards at Constellation Energy. Responsible for BGE utility system engineering services for transmission, substation, gate station, distribution, and metering, he provided development and maintenance of construction standards and work procedures, procurement of major electrical and gas transmission and distribution equipment, and adherence to federal, state and local regulations. BGE is Maryland’s largest gas and electric utility, delivering power to more than 1.2 million electric customers and 655,000 natural gas customers. Stokes also worked with area Black professionals and leaders to found the Bluford Drew Jemison Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Academy.

In the first year, all 130 boys tested at or above the grade level for Baltimore schools. Throughout his career, Stokes has participated in several formal mentoring programs, and has provided informal mentoring to professionals and technicians throughout the Company. He has supported numerous recruitment and community based activities, including the BEYA STEM Global Competiveness Conference, United Way Loaned Executive, American Association of Blacks in Energy, Howard Community College Educational Foundation, and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute Foundation. Recently, he was named chairman of AMIE, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to expand corporate, government, and academic alliances to implement and support programs to attract, educate, graduate and place underrepresented minority students in engineering careers.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 49

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USBE&it USBE&iti isUMMer sUMMer2013 2013 51

JOB HORIZON

Career oUtlooK

52 USBE&it USBE&it i isUMMer sUMMer2013 2013

Computer Technologists of the World Take Heart

by Frank McCoy

you have nothIng to Lose, and everythIng to gaIn The world economy may be fraught with uncertainty, but as a budding, or current, STEM specialist, you’ve put in the hours, days, weeks and years of study, exams, internships and job searches. It is your time to turn a dream of meaningful, challenging and well-remunerated work into reality.

In commemoration of Women’s History Month, this package will introduce you to exciting careers in different areas of computer technology, explore recruiting trends across the information technology spectrum and spotlight inspirational technology titans.

Let’s get started with some good news about computer technology job prospects. In 2013, predictions and projections have set the stage for a good employment year: • Global IT spending may hit $3.7 trillion.

• Sales of devices including PCs, tablets, mobile phones and printers may be $666 billion.

• Enterprise software spending could total $296 billion.

• Big data spending could reach $120 billion in 2013 and $232 billion through 2016.

• The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show introduced more than 20,000 products.

• The U.S. consumer electronics industry is valued at $206 billion.

• GM said it would hire about 1,000 “high-tech” employees for a new Atlanta tech center.

• Nearly 64 percent of hiring managers and recruiters say tech hires will be up this year.

www.blackengineer.com www.blackengineer.com

Career oUtlooK

RECRUITING TRENdS coMputer technoLogIsts WIth puBLIc heaLth or MedIcaL degrees WILL Be In partIcuLar deMand for years.

I

n 2010, the Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center on Education and the Workforce projected that the United States will need 22 million new workers with college degrees, but will graduate three million fewer. The reports stated, “At a time when every job is precious, this shortfall will mean lost economic opportunity for millions of American workers.”

Consequently, the glass remains more than half full for the nation’s best-educated STEM graduates, particularly those in computer technology. Competition may be intense, but those with the right qualifications are likely to be hired.

The ACA impacts two of the fastest-growing healthcare areas: geriatric care and preventive health services that will need IT professionals in multiple areas.

These including federally mandated health record keeping, data management, big data analysis, diagnostic technology and cyber security.

The baby-boomer retirement tsunami also demands improved recordkeeping in the cardiovascular and orthopedic surgery areas. Computer technologists who also have public health or medical degrees will be in high demand for years.

prIvate sector It hIrIng proJectIons

a Look at top It JoBs

Careerbuildercommunications.com’s 2013 U.S. Job Forecast projected “heightened competition for high-skill labor and improved compensation trends.” The report should buoy information and computer technology students and recent graduates.

The top two areas for which hiring managers plan to recruit full-time permanent employees are sales, up 29 percent, and information technology, up 27 percent. Fourth on the list is engineering, up 22 percent. But the most supportive information from the list is that every one of the top 10 sectors from sales to No. 10, marketing, will need individuals with computer skills.

National recruitment, although not by employment sector, is also upbeat, with growth projections for all regions. Additionally, 26 percent of employed information technology specialists, “were approached to work for another company in the last year when they didn’t apply for a position with that organization,” and for higher pay.

While some companies plan to “re-skill” workers, degreed STEM workers and students have the advantage of possessing knowledge that cannot be learned in a short training session.

Information management, a division of SourceMedia, which also owns the American Banker, Financial Planning and The Bond Buyer publications, unveiled its take on Hot IT Jobs for 2013.

Career opportunities are rising for:

heaLthcare It hIrIng proJectIons President Obama’s re-election has ensured that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will expand, in most forms, nationwide, and that should buoy STEM specialists of all stripes.

www.blackengineer.com

• Data scientists and multi-disciplinarians, who Network

World says combine business, analytics and computer skills, and can earn between up to $140,000 annually • Database administrators, who can make $119,500 a year • Network architects, who design and implement computer and information networks, will be in demand and paid about $100,000 • Application developers, who write software programs to meet specific requirements, may make $145,000 annually • Business intelligence analysts, who can earn up to $118,000, produce regular financial and market intelligence from analysis of various data • Mobile application developers may take home $91,000 • Top database portal administrators, expert at maintaining the performance, integrity and security of information nodes, make about $109,000 • Data security analyst can earn up to $94,000 • Software engineers may earn up to $192,000 • Systems analysts, who use computers to get things done, earn about $78,000

USBE&it 53 USBE&iti i sUMMer sUMMer 2013 2013 53

Career oUtlooK

recruItIng trends (cONtiNuED) federaL governMent It hIrIng proJectIons Last December, Government Executive magazine published “The Technologist’s Guide to 2013.” The article highlighted six areas of growth that current STEM students and graduates should investigate for potential employment in the federal government or as a contractor to it. A snapshot of each area is below.

Big Data: The business software company, SAS, defines big data as the “popular term used to describe the exponential growth, availability and use of information, both structured and unstructured.” In 2013, Gartner, an IT research and advisory company, projects that big data will equal $28 billion in projected IT spending out of $34 billion total.

Federal agencies must recruit and train workers to manage, analyze and use the big data the federal government gathers. Currently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, “only 5 percent of the federal workforce is classified to be in computer- or mathematic-related professions.”

Data Center Consolidation: The federal government’s Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative will need computer engineers, computer scientists, cyber security, construction engineers and other information technology specialists to consolidate at least 800 data centers by 2015.

Health Information Technology: The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT has created the Investing in Innovation Initiative.

The ONC is seeking crowdsourcing application developers, software engineers and computer scientists, who are outside contractors, to create programs that reach citizens directly and efficiently. Check out the details about incentive programs and web-based peer-to-peer networks here: www.healthit.gov/sites/.../crowd-sourcingtech-tools-060712.pdf.

54 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

Big Data will equal $28 billion in projected IT spending out of $34 billion total.

Cloud computing: Government Executive reports that, “By 2018, the federal cloud computing market is projected to grow by $47 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 16.2 percent.” The public sector will need thousands of workers to make the transition, maintain it and keep things secure in the cloud. For more information, check out the National Institute for Standards and Technology Cloud Computing Program at http://www.nist. gov/itl/cloud/index.cfm.

Cyber Security: On Dec. 3, 2012, Janet Napolitano, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, said that the DHS will hire at least

600 additional cyber security experts including IT specialists, analysts, cyber and coding experts. Two months earlier, during National Cyber Security Awareness Month, DHS awarded 34 contracts for cyber security research and development to 29 academic and research organizations.

Mobility: Government Executive reports that “Between 2011 and 2016, data traffic on smart phones will grow by 110 percent compounded annually.”

The federal government will need IT specialists to respond to the burgeoning use of the use, misuse and cyber security of the smart devices that public employees possess. www.blackengineer.com

Career oUtlooK

PROFESSIONAL LIFE career achIevers

Cloud CompuTing “I

t’s in the cloud” has become a common catch phrase for locating, maintaining and securing data digitally and, as a business, it has lightning growth. The International Data Corporation, a tech research organization, reported that global public IT cloud services spending in 2012 equaled more than $40 billion, and is expected to be close to $100 billion in 2016.

The use of cloud computing service by five key sectors is also projected to equal 16 percent of IT revenue. The areas are applications, system infrastructure software, platform as a service, servers and basic storage, and IDC believes cloud services will generate 41 percent of growth in those sectors. By 2020, Frank Gens, vice president and chief analyst said, “At least 80 percent of the [IT] industry’s growth, and enterprises’ highestvalue leverage of IT, will be driven by cloud services and the other third platform technologies.”

A leading cloud computing tech and corporate executive is Lauren C. States, vice president and chief technology officer for cloud computing and growth initiatives on the IBM Corporate Strategy team.

Since joining IBM in 1978, after receiving a bachelor’s of science degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, States’ career at Big Blue has been a roadmap for steady ascent. She began as a systems engineer, moved into management, then a business unit, became an executive assistant to the SVP of Technology and, in 2000, moved into the first of several vice president positions.

She was promoted to her current post in 2011, moving from leadership of more than 5,000 colleagues in technical sales and sales enablement for IBM Software Group. www.blackengineer.com

lauRen c. states

Vice president and chief technology officer, cloud computing and growth initiatives IBM cOrPOrATE STrATEGY

Currently, States leads a team that develops the technology strategy for growth initiatives at IBM and works directly with clients, many of whom are in the defense industry, on cloud computing solutions, software, business analytics and emerging markets.

FCW.com, which covers federal technology executives, reported that States’ signature accomplishment has been developing cloud computing principles that the Department of Defense has adopted.

Last year, she was selected as a member of the Federal 100

by FCW.com: The Business of Federal Technology. In 2012, States was also honored by CloudNow, a consortium of women in cloud computing, where she is a member of the advisory board as one of the Top Women in Cloud.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 55

Career oUtlooK

MaRk c. Rooths

Software Development Manager/ Integrated Product Team lead NOrTHrOP GruMMAN

Adeniyi is active in her community. She volunteers for numerous organizations, which include Hosea Williams’ Help Feed the Hungry, Hope House and Habitat for Humanity, just to name a few. Adeniyi is also a proud member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Mark Rooths earned a technology in electronic engineering bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton, in Dayton, Ohio. He went on to earn two master’s degrees from Loyola University in Maryland, engineering science and computer science, plus a master’s of science in technical management from Johns Hopkins University.

Rooths’ interest in electronics started when he was very young and carried him to a career spanning more than 30 years. Today, Rooths is a software development manager and integrated product team lead. In this position, he has to manage budgets, problem-solving sessions, technical and budget resources, team members, team briefings, task requirements and development.

Rooths is also very much involved in his community. He is both technical mentor lead and mentor coordinator for a high school improvement program. In addition, he served as the scholarship chairman for a student achievement program from 2006 to 2008, and he coached youth soccer and basketball from 2000 to 2010.

Commander Lucinda Cunningham graduated from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University in 1988. She left the school with two bachelor’s degrees in industrial technology in the electronics and manufacturing disciplines.

In 1990, she enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and graduated from TRACEN Cape May, N.J., in July of the same year as a fireman apprentice. A few years later, Cmdr. Cunningham was selected for Coast Guard Officer Candidate School, from which she graduated in Feb. 1994. One of her officer assignments included serving on the Coast Guard Ceremonial Honor Guard in Alexandria, Va. She was the first female of any military agency to serve as officer in charge of a Ceremonial Honor Guard.

In her current assignment, Cmdr. Cunningham directs 24/7 operations of enterprise IT infrastructure for the Coast Guard in classified and sensitive operations in unclassified environments.

Cmdr. Cunningham’s span of control includes the management of more than 45,000 standard workstations and 3,000 servers distributed across the Coast Guard environment at all shore units, ships and aircraft.

adeshola adeniyi, pMp

yVes a. lasseRe

lOckHEED MArTIN, INFOrMATION SYSTEMS & GlOBAl SOluTIONS

cOMED, ExElON cOrPOrATION

Senior Project Manager

Adeshola Adeniyi is senior project manager for a major system within the Lockheed Martin Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention Operations team. The system is designed to control, protect and oversee the use, possession and transfer of select agents and toxins. Adeniyi ensures the logical and systematic conversion of customer/product requirements into solutions that acknowledge technical, schedule and cost constraints.

Adeniyi is originally from Lagos, Nigeria, but she moved to the United States at a young age and grew up in Atlanta, Ga. She attended Georgia Institute of Technology, where she earned a bachelor’s of science in industrial and systems engineering degree. She is a certified project management professional from the Project Management Institute.

56 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

cMdR. lucinda cunninGhaM Commander, United States Coast Guard

ENTErPrISE MANAGEMENT BrANcH cHIEF

Director Supply Operations

“Yves is passionate about his work and always ensures his team meets ComEd customers’ needs,” says Anne Pramaggiore, while speaking about Lassere’s role at ComEd. Lassere has been with ComEd for more than 22 years. He joined Exelon in 1990 and held multiple positions in the power generation organization before moving to ComEd, where he has held leadership roles in supply chain. In Lassere’s current role, he is responsible for materials management, logistics and fabrication shops. He leads close to 200 employees, manages an annual budget of $29 million and oversees more than $180 million of materials through-put.

Lassere graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1980, earning a bachelor’s of science in civil engineering. In 1983, he returned and earned his master’s degree in structural engineering. Finally, in 1990, Lassere earned his M.B.A. from the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ill.

www.blackengineer.com

Career oUtlooK

Job Tips, Contacts and News You Can Use state and LocaL governMent It proJectIons In 2012, the Rockefeller Institute for State Government reported that through the third quarter, tax revenue in 47 states continued to grow — the 11th straight quarter of revenue grow. That information doesn’t guarantee employment.

Since 2008, state and local governments shed nearly 681,000 employees. Those municipalities, however, still have growing populations, infrastructure and healthcare concerns, and retiring workers. While state hiring improvement may be scant, individuals with information technology skills will have an advantage, and Moody’s Analytics projects that the states could hire 220,000 people this year.

states attractIng future eMpLoyees In “top states for BusIness 2010” Last September, the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute listed 10 states that were the job destinations between 2000 and 2010, and that trend is unlikely to reverse as the economy picks up.

Many of the attractive states also have industries that need STEM workers.

Washington state has seen growth in manufacturing, construction and healthcare services, and is home to Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon.

Colorado’s public sector employment attractions are the U.S. Geological Survey, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Tennessee’s employers include FedEx, Volkswagen and Nissan’s North American headquarters.

Georgia is home to Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola and Kia Motors’ $1 billion plant.

North Carolina has the Research Triangle Park area, Bank of America and other financial companies.

Texas is a carbon-based energy heartland with oil and gas, logging and mining sectors. www.blackengineer.com

• The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its Energy Outlook 2013. (http:// www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/)

• The Occupational Outlook Handbook shows

the breadth of the STEM employment options that are likely to be available through 2020. (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/About/ Projections-Overview.htm)

• NASA announced a new multi-year Mars program. (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news. php?release=2012-384)

• Government Executive magazine published

“The Technologist’s Guide to 2013.” (http:// www.govexec.com/gbc/technologistsguide-2013/59666/)

• The Federal Data Center Consolidation

Initiative needs computer engineers, computer scientists, cyber security, construction engineers and other information technology specialists.

• The Department of Health and Human

Services’ Office of National Coordinator for Health IT wants to hire Information Technology specialists. (http://www. healthit.gov/?utm_source=google&utm_ medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand)

• Check out the National Institute for

Standards and Technology Cloud Computing Program. (http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/ index.cfm)

• See which 34 organizations got Department of Homeland Security contracts. (http:// www.cyber.st.dhs.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2012/11/Press-Relase_cybercontracts-FINAL.pdf)

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 57

Career oUtlooK

2013 It hIrIng trends In December, the Robert Half Technology report projected more good news than bad. Its chief information officer survey said 17 percent of those polled planned to hire more IT professionals. Only 8 percent thought they might fire employees, and 75 percent said they would “maintain their current staffing levels.”

Plus, the survey found that in the early part of the year when annual budgets have been approved, 90 percent of CIOs foresaw company expansion in the first quarter, and 49 percent of the CIOs believed that their IT budgets would grow.

The IT professionals ranked in order of greatest demand were in data/database management, followed by network administration and web development/website design. Cyber security and applications development openings were also projected.

The early part of the year was expected to see information technology demand, respectively, from the manufacturing sector, business services industry and finance.

Mobile applications and htML5 There are various mobile architectures: native, special, hybrid, HTML 5, Message and No Client. Gartner says developers must develop “design skills to deliver touch-optimized mobile applications that operate across a range of devices in a coordinated fashion.”

computer technology fields to investigate

the Internet of things The definition of mobile changes as many personal and work objects such as medical containers, automobiles and household appliances are web-linked and directed. Who will develop, control and protect these sensors and technologies?

Dice.com, which calls itself “the career hub for tech,” says some IT jobs belong on the endangered species list. They see systems and Linux administrators disappearing. However, there is growing interest in and reliance upon data analytics, engineering and network security, and system architecture professionals.

Additionally, in a report that that will hearten students in the computer disciplines, Gartner research, an information technology research and advisory company, predicts spotlights powerful technologies and trends emerging in 2013.

Mobile device Battles In coming years, more than 80 percent of devices sold will be smartphones, and 20 percent will be Windows based. Tablet sales will approach 50 percent of the laptop market, and the most popular operating systems will be Apple iOS, Google’s Android and Windows 8, respectively, as PC dominance is replaced by varied operating environments.

58 USBE&it i sUMMer 2013

personal cloud This platform becomes the always available, go-to repository, not a PC, for personal information, services and personal preferences, linking all of one’s devices. IT specialists with multidisciplinary hardware and software experience will be valued. enterprise app store Experienced “apptrepreneurs” may set up private application stores to deliver custom-made apps to an organizations employees.

strategic Big data Large public, private and nonprofit organizations will leave behind “a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions,” and consider “multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, which will become the ‘logical’ enterprise data warehouse.” actionable analytics As cost drops and capability rises, organizations will want to analyze all the big data they capture through every computing device. Who will develop the processes to make that so? www.blackengineer.com

Career oUtlooK

What’s next In cyBer securIty JoB opportunItIes Cyber security professionals don’t use magical powers to prepare for emerging trends in threat assessment and defense. The pros stop, look, listen and analyze. The following sectors are the most promising for students to investigate. advanced threat Manager RSA Security Solution, an EMC Company, calls Advanced Threats “highly targeted, amply funded” cyber attacks on specific organizations, using multiple vectors such as malware and scans for vulnerability, plus a “low and slow” technique where an attack is launched from single computers, not a bot herd to evade detection. cloud architect Stanton Gatewood, the chief information security and ePrivacy officer of the University System of Georgia, says this field needs graduates who will deploy and ensure end-to-end secure encryption for local and cloud providers, and oversee cloud defense training for users, technologists and management.

Mobility Management and Byod officer Cyber criminals are rationalists, so recent news must thrill them. There are six billion cell phone subscriptions. Microsoft launched its Surface tablet, and both the iPad Mini and updated iPad are on sale. Information technology professionals that devise, execute and manage effective mobile and BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices) strategies for public, private and non-profit organizations will be in hot demand.. healthcare application/Medical device security The expansion of Obamacare alone will boost the demand for IT professionals to protect healthcare records, personnel management and infrastructure. The potential remote hacking of X-ray machines, pacemakers, insulin pumps and other device demands that healthcare hire more cyber security specialists. network security The Sophos 2012 Network Security Survey (http://www. sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/security-trends/networksecurity-survey.aspx) of IT leaders makes a bold opening statement. IT departments shouldn’t think that protecting their network perimeters will make their networks secure. Skilled, innovative employees are vital as “cloud services, mobile devices, remote workers and wireless networks are all expanding the network boundary beyond its traditional reach.”

Sophos, founded in 1985, is a $400 million IT security and data protection firm with headquarters in Boston and England.

Big data security guardian Gartner is hailed as the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. In 2013, Gartner projects that big data will comprise $28 billion projected IT spending of $34 billion. According to techrepublic.com, “Big data is the massive amount of rapidly moving and freely available www.blackengineer.com

data that potentially serves a valuable and unique need in the marketplace, but is extremely expensive and difficult to mine by traditional means.” Crooks and hacktivists want access to big data. It’s your job to protect your organizations’ big data using monitoring tools and defensive processes. penetration testers Like to hack, but want to wear a white hat and avoid fines or imprisonment? The goal is just what it sounds like. Licensed penetration testers carry out assaults on the payroll of the targeted organization, or as a contractor to find, test, document and train IT specialists how to overcome digital vulnerabilities. The ECCouncil (http://www.eccouncil.org) provides training for those who want to lead block cyber crooks.

Mobility defense Government Executive magazine reports that “Between 2011 and 2016, data traffic on smart phones will grow by 110 percent compounded annually.” The federal government will need IT specialists to respond to the burgeoning use of the use, misuse and cyber security of the smart devices that public employees possess. the federal data center consolidation Initiative This agency needs computer engineers, computer scientists, cyber security, construction engineers and other information technology specialists.

USBE&it i sUMMer 2013 59

Mechanical & Civil Engineering - BS in Civil Engineering

- BS in Mechanical Engineering

- Construction Management - BS in Construction Management

(The only BS Degree Program in the State of Alabama)

- Electrical Engineering & Computer Science - BS in Computer Science

- BS in Electrical Engineering - M.Eng in Materiel Engineering (CE, EE, ME emphasis)

Physics, Chemistry & Mathematics - BS in Chemistry with Mathematics minor - BS in Chemistry with Biology Minor - BS in Chemistry with concentration in Forensics - BS in Mathematics - BS in Physics - MS in Applied Physics - Ph.D. in Applied Physics

www.aamu.edu/cetps www.facebook.com/aamucetps www.youtube.com/aamucetps (256) 372-5560

College of Engineering

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University This is Where Learning Happens.

Our Degree Programs Bachelor of Science (BS)

Architectural Engineering Bioengineering Biological Engineering Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Electrical Engineering Industrial and Systems Engineering Mechanical Engineering

Master of Science (MS)

Bioengineering Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Computational Science and Engineering (Interdisciplinary) Computer Science Electrical Engineering Industrial and Systems Engineering Mechanical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Computational Science and Engineering (Interdisciplinary) Electrical Engineering Industrial and Systems Engineering Mechanical Engineering Our College congratulates alumnus Tim Atwell (Computer Science ’94) for your outstanding professional achievements and contributions. Your continued excellence is a wonderful demonstration of “Aggie Pride.”

For More Information Contact Us At: 1601 E. Market Street Greensboro, North Carolina 27411 Phone: (336) 285-2640 Website: www.coe.ncat.edu

imagine the possibilities . . .

is the second oldest public institution of higher education in Texas. Offering baccalaureate degrees in 50 academic majors, 41 master’s degrees and four doctoral programs, the University has an established reputation for producing thousands of engineers, nurses, educators and corporate leaders. Since 1876, PVAMU has been dedicated to fulfilling its land-grant mission of achieving excellence in teaching, research and service.

The Roy G. Perry College of Engineering (COE) has distinguished itself as a premier program at Prairie View A&M University, maintaining a reputation for integrating theoretical knowledge with advanced hands-on industry experience.

Many of its graduates are employed throughout the business and technological communities through Fortune 500 companies and as successful entrepreneurs. Overall, the Roy G. Perry College of Engineering produces graduates who are equipped to exercise a competitive advantage in today’s critical engineering disciplines.

COE Degree Programs

Chemical Engineering........BSCHE*, MSENGR Civil and Environmental Engineering ........................BSCE*, MSENGR Computer Science..............BS*, MSCS Computer Information Systems...............................MSCIS Computer Engineering.......BSCPEG* Electrical Engineering........BSEE*, MSEE, PhD Mechanical Engineering....BSME*, MSENGR Computer Engineering Technology..........................BSCET* Electrical Engineering Technology..........................BSEET*

*All Undergraduate Programs Are Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Certified

Roy G. Perry College of Engineering

P.O. Box 519, MS 2500, Prairie View, TX 77446 - (936) 261-9890 Office - (936) 261-9868 FAX

www.pvamu.edu

PROGRAMMED FOR EXCELLENCE Tuskegee universiTy

www.tuskegee.edu/admissions