BLACK ENGINEER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS
business development, client satisfaction, professional affiliations and community outreach. He also won a Chairman’s Apprecia- tion Award from the Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce in 2008 and a Bridging the Gap Award from the Greater Baltimore Committee in 2009.
As a minority business advisor to clients including IBM,
Toyota, HP, the National Football League, and Science Applica- tions International Corporation (SAIC), Wallace made the case for supporting minority businesses. He has served on boards and commissions run by local and state agencies dedicated to further- ing the recognition of minority business as an integral part of the economy. In 2003, he was appointed by then-Governor Robert L. Ehrlich of Maryland to serve on the Commission for Minority Business Reform. In 2009, his leadership on the Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) Small and Minority Business Advisory Board resulted in the completion of a BRAC Small and Minority Business Opportunity study and teaming partnerships between “BRAC-ready” firms and more established firms doing business with the federal government. Wallace has one message for people dreaming of launching a startup: you can succeed in spite of the economy, your circum- stances or your lack of opportunity. Hard work afforded Wallace the opportunity to go to college, graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, earn a Master of Business Administration in 1984 from The Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and then pass on a better life to others. He founded the first BITH family group of companies, Bithgroup Technologies, in 1992. Later, he added Entreteach Learning Systems as an educational exten- sion to his research and books such as Black Wealth Through Black Entrepreneurship, and Soul Food: 52 Principles for Black Entrepreneurial Success, in which he prescribes solutions that address the issues women and minority entrepreneurs face in the marketplace. BITH Energy offers clients information systems and strategies to minimize energy consumption. Wallace is a member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, the Maryland Small Business Task Force, the American Association of Blacks in Energy and Global Vessels Inc.
GEM Outstanding Young Alumnus
Diona Chenier Multi-Disciplined Engineer Northrop Grumman Corporation
learned what engineers do and how they improve people’s lives by applying math, science and technology to human problems. While attending camps at Auburn University and Clemson University, she also got to see how engineers help make the world a better place by designing things that make life a little easier, safer or that protect the environment.
Chenier wanted to make a difference in the real world through engineering, so she earned a four-year academic scholarship to Florida A&M University (FAMU). During her undergraduate years she completed two internships. The first was at the NASA Ken- nedy Space Center, where she helped schedule various tasks prior to shuttle launches. The second was at the Federal Aviation Administra- tion, where she was responsible for learning software systems and then creating technical and user manuals to aid traffic controllers. Chenier was also a teaching assistant before graduating with a bach- elor’s degree in Industrial Engineering in 2002. With the support of a GEM fellowship and a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins pre-doctoral fel- lowship, Chenier enrolled in graduate school at North Carolina State University that same year.
Chenier’s science teacher in- troduced her to a pre-college summer camp at Kettering University. Chenier applied for it and attended the program as well as similar camps over the next two summers. At Kettering, she
D
www.blackengineer.com uring her
seventh grade year, Diona
In 2004, Chenier graduated from North Carolina State Uni- versity with a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. She was accepted to North Grumman’s Early Career Professional Develop- ment program, which provides entry-level engineers with rotational assignments in a variety of departments. She served as a logistics engineer in support of F-16 antenna radar programs and within six months took on a challenging assignment of supporting a Navy program by forecasting acquisitions and sales. She analyzed reports for labor and material costs and provided financial support. She was also selected to participate in an18-month leadership training at Northrop Grumman, spending six months creating designs for a new $30 million night vision goggles manufacturing plant. Between 2005 and 2008, she was responsible for risk and cost analyses for circuit boards used to mechanically support and electrically con- nect components in commercially produced electronic devices. In 2008, she successfully led reviews of a million-dollar effort which improved manufacturing and won impressive cost savings. Currently, Chenier is responsible for maintaining schedules to support material shortages and resource scheduling conflicts in assemble and test, and she coordinates staff support in labs for radar and communication system tests. She is also in charge of overseeing the flow of hardware through antenna assembly, compact range testing, environmental testing and trouble shoot- ing. She has co-authored four invention disclosures involving manufacturing process to fabricate antenna components. In 2002, Chenier led members of her Institute of Industrial Engineering chapter to do handy jobs on a Habitat for Humanity home built for a single mom and her two children. She has also volunteered with Maryland MESA (Math, Engineering, Science and Achievement), and Junior Achievement of Central Maryland. From 2005 to 2009, she served as a mentor for WORTHY, a program that teams Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electronic Systems sector employees with Baltimore City high school students to help them achieve their dreams of pursuing technical careers. One of the mentees Chenier worked with between 2005 and 2007 graduated with a degree in engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2011.
USBE&IT I WINTER 2012 23
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