SPECIAL RECOGNITION WINNERS
] Amitha Rao [ Senior Manager Process, CSC
hen a college of engineering in Madras, India, balked at giving Amitha Rao a scholarship, her father took out an educational loan to see his
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daughter through. In 1983, Ms. Rao earned an honors degree in electronics and communication from the oldest techni- cal institute in India. She joined the newly established Nettur Technical Training Foundation in Bangalore — a prominent private educational trust with campuses all over south India — as a trainee engineer in the maintenance department. She spent seven years at NTTF Industries Ltd. —the first female maintenance executive of the company.
Her career path matched with her passions, except that the changes in perspective toward women STEM professionals in India still didn’t encourage support of a childcare system that
was crucial for improving working conditions. After she got married in 1990, she left NTTF for another firm. “Life at Micro- con was very interesting,” Ms. Rao recalls. “We were working on new technologies like PDAs/mobiles. I quickly rose up to become one of the senior managers.” But as her professional life became more demanding, she found it increasingly tough to balance work and home.
In time, Ms. Rao heard about Covansys, now CSC. She joined the firm in 2004 as an assistant manager of quality. Since 2005, Ms. Rao has been the chief mentor for a corporate initiative aimed at introducing associate managers to project management. Through PROMPT, she has been responsible for training more than 100 leads. Ms. Rao is currently pursu- ing a master’s degree, a source of inspiration to many of her colleagues.
] Tami Randolph, Ph.D. [ Program Manager, Northrop Grumman Corporation
T
ami Randolph has been successful in creating technology breakthroughs that have resulted in excess of $20 mil- lion in sales. The first woman in her organization — a signal processing development group affectionately known as the “Midas Boys” until she joined in 2001 — she has been making revolutionary contributions to signal intelligence-related tech- nical capabilities that have gotten the attention of government customers.
One of the instrumental technologies she has been developing examined the feasibility of using heart waveforms for the iden- tification of individuals in hostile territories by the unique pat- tern of their heartbeats. As a result of her efforts to expand the technology to additional environments, the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) expressed an interest and requested a proposal currently under consideration for contract research and development.
] Glenda Smith [ Executive Director, Verizon Information Technology
lenda Smith has over 30 years of experience at Verizon Communica- tions and former Bell telephone com- panies. She held a variety of positions in toll operation, residential services, software development, programmer training and quality assurance before advancing to directorship of wholesale integration in 2003. Three years later she was appointed executive director of Verizon Partner Solutions - Release Assurance.
G And in May 2007, she was named
www.womenofcolor.net
executive director of Customer Care Integration Testing. Effective Novem- ber 2009, the wholesale testing group merged under her leadership to form the new Business and Telecom Retail and Integration Testing. Ms. Smith led the information technology group to success by creating a culture of performance, providing career advancement opportu- nities for high potential employees, and improving group dynamics within the information technology organization.
As an active member of the Verizon IT
Diversity Council, she is widely recog- nized for championing interactive inclu- sive volunteer employee events designed to provide greater diversity awareness, build bridges, and strengthen relation- ships across ethnic and cultural organi- zations. She provides executive support to Verizon’s Diversity Leadership Initia- tive, a program that supports minority employees who have been identified as leadership career path candidates. Ms. Smith is also a key member of the inter- nal disabilities support network (DIAL).
WOMENOFCOLOR | FALL 2010 59
Beyond the technolo- gy advancements, she has made significant contributions to her team. People Dr. Ran- dolph has mentored have since been ac- cepted into corporate mentoring programs,
gone on to manage and lead large technical contracts, and grown from “green” engineers to key contributors. Under her training and guidance, Melanie Bernard, Ph.D., went through to Northrop Grumman’s Future Technical Leaders. The FTL is a premier professional development program aimed at shaping the company’s next generation visionary technologists.
2010
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