April 7, 2008

Alumni Receive Black Engineer of the Year Award

Four NC State engineering alumni were among those honored at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards luncheon in Baltimore, Md., earlier this year.

The four alumni who received the awards were all employees of Northrop Grumman, a Baltimore-based defense and technology company. Eric Pearson, the sector director of development programs for Northrop Grumman, said that the company has a very close relationship with the College of Engineering and its Minority Engineering Programs, which allows him to work closely with all of the incoming NC State alumni that the company hires.

“We have been fortunate to select over 75 excellent Engineering Graduates from NC State over the past six years in addition to my personal contacts and consistent involvement with the Minority Engineering Programs,” Pearson said. “Once I hire them, they work in my organization and I foster their development.”

Pearson said that the opportunities for minority engineering students at NC State would continue to increase as long as the University continued to develop close relationships with employers, like the one that it has with Northrop Grumman.

“If the University and employers continue to work together to foster mentoring and development of minorities, it can become even more of an impact on the growth of minority engineers in this country,” Pearson said.

The award recipients were Diona Bateman and Luther Williams, who are hardware engineers, Cessily Greene, a test engineer, and Katrina Jackson, a systems engineer. The luncheon was a part of the National BEYA STEM Global Competitiveness Conference. The three-day conference featured seminars, workshops, and a Career Fair.

Pearson said that Northrop Grumman’s focus on providing development opportunities for minority employees was one of the main reasons that the company’s employees were able to perform so well at the awards this year.

“Two key elements of our Northrop Grumman culture that draws students from many of the major universities are our New Graduate Professional Development Program and our Leadership Training Program,” Pearson said. “In the past six years, we have hired over 750 new graduate engineers for our Baltimore location alone and we have been over fifty percent women and minorities. We are absolutely one of the best places to work for diversity candidates.”

-daniel-

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