BLACK ENGINEER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS
Veradie L. Ore Deputy Program Manager Naval Sea Systems Command
with the United States Navy, helping to construct and main- tain the nation’s subsurface
V
and surface fleet. He began his career in government civil service in 1987 at the Naval Sea System Command Engineering Directorate; responsible for development of specifications for power distribu- tion and generation systems. During the next ten years, he worked in the Submarine Directorate as a Senior Electrical Engineer and as an Assistant Acquisition Manager for the Virginia class submarines. Expanding his experience beyond electrical engineering, he served as a requirements action officer on the Chief of Naval Operations staff, as a legislative fellow in the U. S. House of Representatives and he was also assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology as an action officer. In 2000, he returned to Naval Sea System Command and was promoted to factory branch manager for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and later Portsmouth Naval Shipyard within the submarine directorate where he managed construction overhauls for nuclear submarines. In March 2005, he was promoted branch head of the NAVSEA technical submarine division with oversight for acoustics, weapons and structures. Ore has led efforts to set up a first time summer hire program for Hispanic college and university students. His contributions have been crucial to the U.S. Submarine Force being able to complete the most challenging missions with reliable imaging and electronic warfare systems. These systems must be able to give the operators wide capability to observe ships in demanding ocean environments without compromising a submarine’s stealth. Ore earned a Bach- elor’s degree in science at North Carolina A&T University, and a Master’s degree from Florida Institute of Technology. He is one of a select group of acquisition leaders.
Willie Simmons Engineering Manager Northrop Grumman Corporation
system patrols America’s bor- ders twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, providing early warning detection of attack. The go-to expert on one of the best, longest running airborne radar programs is a prime example of
T
www.blackengineer.com 45 USBE&IT I WINTER 2012
eradie L. Ore has spent more than 20 years
an engineer who has built competence, credibility and confidence in his technical skills brick by brick. At age thirteen, Willie Simmons was fascinated with the technology that enabled him to watch an event held half way around the world on television. While his family had the basics, they struggled financially, so at sixteen he started work in a local grocery store. With the money that he saved, he helped pay his way through Southern Polytechnic State University. On a whim, he attended a Minorities in Engineering Day as a fresh- man and he learned he could participate in a co-op program. During one assignment, Simmons met an engineer who traveled around the ridge and valley region servicing machines for a wire manufacturing company. Simmons’ interest in the engineering field increased. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering technology after six years working full time. At a career fair in 1981, a Westinghouse recruiter asked Sim- mons what he thought about working in Saudi Arabia. Three months later he was sent to the Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma, then to Saudi. For more than a decade he worked between the United States, Japan and Saudi as a field service engineer. In 1995, he was selected to be an in country rep at a NATO air base in Germany to assist in the airborne warning and control system radar system improvement upgrade of the NATO fleet. After the four-year assignment he re- turned to Baltimore and led the effort to qualify a high-power carrier wave for communications. Willie’s team completed qualification and the U.S. Air Force placed a $35 million order for kits which are presently being sold to Saudi Arabia and France. In 2006, he became systems lead for Japan. The $36.5 million Saudi phase resulted in a $23 million booking that led to $5 million in sales and a $3 million positive cash flow for the year. In 2010 he was assigned engineering manager for surveillance and reconnaissance responsible for oversee- ing all AWAC engineering functions. He is the designated technical interface with U.S. and international customers. In his thirty-year career, Simmons has been driven by the need to give back. He serves the Big Brothers of Oklahoma City, youth sports, a church homeless shelter, Maryland Food bank, Business Roundtable Achievement Counts and as a basketball coach. He is also an ardent support of Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems’ WORTHY Program, which helps high school students interested in math, engineering, computer science, or physics to gain a better understanding of engineering and business from the inside of a major company. The WORTHY Program offers young people the opportu- nity to realize their full potential for higher education.
he Airborne Warning and Control System
Ben Thompson New Technology Insertion Engineer Plant Engineering Branch Fleet Resources Center, Naval Air Systems Command
United States Navy from July 1975 to July 1981, at which
B USBE&IT I WINTER 2012 45
www.blackengineer.com
en Thompson was on active duty with the
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