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The future is bright for Native Americans with technical training. "There are limitless opportunities for Native Americans pursuing careers in science, engineering and other technical fields," says Shirley LaCourse, deputy director of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES, www.aises.org).
AISES can help aspiring Native techies make it to good careers. "We offer a network of professionals in the various high-tech fields who can provide support and encourage involvement. We can connect students, and professionals too, with scholarships, internships and venues to present research."
There are many paths to a successful technical career, as the Native American engineers and IT specialists we interviewed for this story have discovered. Some have made their way into technical careers on their own, but most have relied on support from their families, tribes and organizations like AISES.
Alicia Littlewolf: programmer at Sandia
Alicia Littlewolf, Northern Cheyenne, is a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM). She's part of the lab's programming and analysis group.
Littlewolf earned a BS in environmental science in 1999 at Rocky Mountain College (Billings, MT). "But the positions in environmental science didn't have the learning potential I wanted. I wanted a field that was constantly changing, where I could always learn new things," she says.
In college Littlewolf did a chemical engineering internship at Sandia, converting lignin (a paper waste product) into an oxygenated fuel source. That was more interesting. During the internship she saw many aspects of the lab's work, including some of its cutting-edge computer science research. But it took her a while to make her way back to the lab.
After graduation she took a job as an academic counselor at Chief Dull Knife College (Lame Deer, MT). She also worked at Ballard Petroleum (Billings, MT) as a geo-technician, creating maps for drilling.
She enrolled in a yearlong post-bac CS program at Montana State University (MSU, Bozeman, MT), and finished her MSCS in 2005. She worked part time for an MSU research lab, creating a visualization system that could be used to upload agricultural data. She also became a mother.
In 2006 Littlewolf got a job at Sandia in enterprise information systems support and development, doing programming and analysis in Java. She's currently supporting an existing system and creating another for Sandia's radiation and dosimetry department. In everything she does, she says, she's part of a team. "It's a really encouraging environment."
She notes that Sandia is also very supportive of working parents. "Because I am a mother, I had to find a place that supports home life."
Littlewolf says college grades are more important than most people think. She also emphasizes the importance of getting internship experience, especially in computer science.
"My dad always said that I have a quiet determination. I think that comes from my roots as a Native American," she says. "I tell all college students, 'Don't ever give up.' Even if something makes you uncomfortable, that's important for your personal and professional growth."
IBM's Kerry Langford works in information development
Kerry Langford, Cherokee, is an advisory software engineer at the Rochester, MN location of information technology giant IBM (Armonk, NY). Langford earned his 1988 BS in computer science and engineering (CSE) from the University of Texas (Arlington). He'd always wanted to work for a major corporation.
In college he co-oped for three years at IBM's Dallas office, compiling code and providing national technical support. "We answered technical questions for marketing and sales people around the country," he says.
After graduation he started in software integration at IBM in Dallas. He was part of a team of twelve supporting a lab of 600 software builders. In 1992 he shifted to IBM's Rochester, MN office, where he did similar work for the AS/400 platform.
In 1996, still working in Rochester, MN, he took a software engineering job based at IBM's Armonk, NY headquarters. He wrote tools to help people translate IBM's user interface into other languages. "I was on a small team of only four or five people working on tools for forty different countries," he says. "A lot of tools and languages have changed since I started. We've gone from C to C++ to Java.
"What hasn't changed at IBM is the pressure to get the product to customers. To be successful you have to be flexible." One characteristic he takes from his Native American heritage, he says, is the ability to adapt to his surroundings.
His determination may be one of his greatest strengths, he adds. "I'm not a competitive person by nature, but ask me to solve a problem and I won't give up."
Langford notes that to succeed in the corporate environment, "You have to find someone who is willing to guide and teach you." While there was no formal mentor program at IBM when he started, there is one for new employees now.
"Seek education, be diligent and accurate," he stresses. "I also recommend that young people develop good communication skills, and learn to talk about their own accomplishments," he says. "For a lot of Native Americans that's a struggle. We're taught to be humble and not promote ourselves above others. That's the most difficult mind set to switch."
Linda Mitchell: internal audits for ON Semiconductor
Linda Mitchell, Navajo, does technical work as global quality lead for internal auditing at ON Semiconductor (Phoenix, AZ), but she didn't start out to be a techie. She headed to the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) in 1995 without a specific career goal.
During her first year there she took a job doing lab tests at the University of Arizona Cancer Research Center, and enjoyed it. She worked closely with the department manager. "I learned a lot about the fundamentals of management and decided that that was an area I was interested in," she says. She also liked learning how things work. "I would take a device apart and put it back together," she recalls.
But adjusting to school in Tucson was a difficult transition for Mitchell. "If I had known how much of a shock it would be to leave my community and family, I would have prepared myself better." She reached out to other Native American tribes in the Tucson area, as well as to recruiters and other non-Native American individuals at the school, for support.
In 1996 her grandmother passed away, and she returned to the reservation to help her family. After a few months she took a position at Motorola in Chandler, AZ as a manufacturing associate. "I worked in operations, processing production materials," she says. She was laid off after several years and went to the Tech Group in Tempe, AZ, where she was a supervisor in plastics quality assurance.
A year later she was hired as a contractor at ON Semiconductor to do document control and develop an internal audit program. In March 2006 she became document control coordinator.
Two months later she was approached by her manager about a permanent position. Now she's a full-time employee, doing internal audits for core processes and risk assessment. She says her experience reading blueprints and measuring equipment in the plastics field applies well to her current work.
Mitchell also is involved with internal audits for the company's European and Asia Pacific regions. She travels to plants in the United States to make sure their automated audit systems are working and can pass certification.
"I think it's good to have focus, but you shouldn't completely negate other opportunities that come up," Mitchell advises. She points to her work experience after she left college, which gave her the knowledge to do the job she is doing today.
She's currently enrolled at the University of Arizona, aiming to be a college graduate before long. "I'm going to really value my degree now," she says.
She warns Native American college students that culture shock can have a huge impact on their early careers. "For Native Americans it's really a trust issue. It's okay to have relationships outside of the tribe, but it's hard to move out of your comfort zone."
Mitchell says she's found a job where her skills are well-used. "Once I get a project I pick it apart. I think about how it affects the company and how I can change it."
Microsoft's Gina Northover-Moore: from contractor to full-timer
Gina Northover-Moore, Yakama, was interested in both technology and entertainment, and hoped to combine the two fields. Growing up in White Swan, WA in the early 1990s, "My original goal was to get into music and video, with an eye on raising the presence of Native Americans in the entertainment industry."
She was also intrigued by the World Wide Web and Microsoft's developing technology. From 1987 to 1992 she worked in the airline and travel industry; those jobs exposed her to several airline-industry programming languages.
In 1994 Northover-Moore got an associates degree at the Art Institute of Seattle (Seattle, WA). A year later her programming experience got her a contract job for Microsoft (Seattle, WA). She found the position with the help of the Seattle United Indians of All Tribes foundation, which connects area Native Americans with job opportunities and offers other support.
Over the next decade she did Web development for Microsoft as well as other companies, including Cingular and Point.com, an online shopping site for wireless products and services based in the Seattle area. In 1999 she became a test lead for msn.com, still working as a contractor.
Seven years later she became a full-time Microsoft employee as IT test lead. In this position, she says, "I manage the testers, make sure they write up good test plans, and oversee other test leads." She also works with an offshore test team in India.
Although she worked her way in as a contractor, Northover-Moore recommends internships as another good route into a company like Microsoft. "Microsoft has great internship programs," she says. "You can also contact vendor companies, gaming companies, anywhere where you can get the opportunity to work on websites.
"There will always be a need to test products," she adds. "Even though today there is more automation, that often requires more testing work.
"There's an assumption that Native Americans aren't very assertive. I myself was pretty quiet in meetings, but I soon learned not to be afraid to ask questions," Northover-Moore says. "Many Native Americans benefit from leadership skills they develop in school."
Northover-Moore enjoys her work with the team in India, and with other colleagues from many cultural backgrounds. "One thing I love about Microsoft is that with the many different cultures around me, I feel like I've been all over the world!"
Outside work Northover-Moore manages IndianRodeoNews.com, a Web-based newspaper that seeks to bring a sense of community to Native Americans across the country, especially those in the rodeo world. She hopes it will also help Native American kids get interested in computer science and the Web.
Alvin Begaye is a senior software engineer at General Dynamics C4
According to Alvin Begaye's Navajo tradition, much of life can be divided into fours. There are four seasons of the year, and four stages of human life: infancy, youth, adulthood and old age. Begaye, a senior software engineer at General Dynamics C4 Systems (Scottsdale, AZ), breaks down his work the same way: "There's the planning stage, which represents the project's infancy," he says, "then preparation, implementation and finally completion."
Begaye earned his BS in CS and engineering in 1997 at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ). "Growing up on the reservation we didn't have much technology," he says, "So when I got to college I was drawn to computers." He put himself through college as a father of four, with considerable help from his wife, he says.
His advisors suggested he study CIS or CSE. "I asked them which one was harder, and they said computer science and engineering. So that's what I took."
After graduation he found a position at General Dynamics as a software engineer. He trained for three months and then joined a C and C++ design team. Although the company didn't have a formal mentoring program at the time, he found people from whom to learn.
Near the end of 1999 General Dynamics C4 was in competition for a government contract, and he was part of the fast-paced project. Begaye put in a lot of extra hours, and was rewarded for his efforts with a promotion. He has recently taken on even more responsibility, and is now a senior member of the team and a mentor.
Begaye and his teammates "all have different ways of working," he says. "But I enjoy learning new approaches. That is another part of the Navajo culture, to adopt other ideas."
Begaye advises other Native Americans, "Don't forget your culture. Use it to help you. And work as hard as you can."
Rose Garcia: CAD at the Las Vegas Valley Water District
Rose Garcia is a senior CAD technician II for the Las Vegas Valley Water District (Las Vegas, NV). She was named Mother of the Year by the Las Vegas Sun in 2002 for her success in balancing career and family. She has managed to honor her role as a mother and wife while pursuing an education and career. She knows better than most how hard life's journey can be.
Garcia's parents are Pueblo and Apache with some Spanish heritage. She grew up moving around northern Nevada. When she graduated from high school in 1972, she married a military man and started college, but was unable to stay in school because of his frequent relocations. "I wanted to be a microbiologist," she says, but she was never in one place long enough to do the course work.
She was divorced in 1983 and remarried in 1984. Her new husband, a Klamath Indian, encouraged her to go back to school, and she attended Truckee Meadows Community College (Reno, NV), and later the Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN, Las Vegas, NV). She discovered that she especially loved computer aided drafting and design (CADD) and got an associates degree in that subject in 1995.
Although Garcia's education was going well, her home life was in turmoil. Her second husband suffered from alcoholism and had to leave home. He entered a rehabilitation program and stopped drinking, and eventually reconnected with the family. He told their children, "Get a good education like your mother. You want to be smart like she is." He died shortly afterward, but not before he had made a strong impression on the family.
For Garcia his death was another incentive to complete her education. She worked part time in the computer science department at the community college and also tutored. From 1995 through 1996 she worked as a CAD technician at a local consulting engineering firm.
She was given the opportunity to teach a beginning CAD course in 1996 at CCSN. She enjoyed teaching, so she enrolled at the University of Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV) and earned a teaching degree in 2000. She continued teaching part time; in fact, she's still teaching today.
In 1996 she was hired by the Las Vegas office of Dunham Associates Consulting Engineers, based in Minneapolis, as a CAD technician and designer doing mechanical, HVAC and electrical design. After she finished her degree in 2000, she became corporate CAD manager. She also worked as a CAD manager and designer for Professional Design Associates (Henderson, NV).
Two years later, in 2002, Garcia was hired into her current job, senior CAD technician at Las Vegas Valley Water District. She's responsible for CAD as well as GPS mapping and statistics. "We integrate CAD and GIS to document the as-built infrastructure for the Water District. We use this new technology to create digital maps with information about the facilities that can be viewed on line in real time, even out in the field."
In addition to her work, Garcia is on the board of directors for the Las Vegas Indian Center. "I'm very proud to be part of that," she says. The center provides social services, health education, housing and government representation to Native Americans living in southern Nevada, both in urban areas and on reservations.
Garcia says her education helped her overcome the personal pressures that took such a toll on friends and family. Her best friend, for example, struggled with similar issues and ultimately committed suicide. "We planned to go to school together, but she had a harder time breaking away from her problems."
Five of her six children are full-time college students, she reports proudly, one in the last year of medical school. Garcia herself is working on a masters in public administration.
"In school they don't teach for the way Native Americans learn," she comments. "We're global learners, and like to see the whole thing first, then break it into parts. That style is a real advantage for me in the workplace, though, because I can be a true 'big picture person.'"
Dwayne Zaragoza: systems engineerat Lockheed Martin
Dwayne Zaragoza is affiliated with both the Pueblo of Acoma and the Hopi tribe. He's a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, CO. He got the training he needs for his classified analysis work when he joined the U.S. Army after high school.
When he separated from the Army six years later, he and his wife moved to Colorado so their children could grow up in a small town. Zaragoza enrolled at the University of Denver.
He received his BS in CIS in 1998. Throughout his college years he worked at Lockheed Martin in systems integration, providing quality assurance and assisting system users. In 2000 he took a position at Lucent Technologies in Denver as a systems manager, focusing on call center issues and troubleshooting. He pursued his masters in telecom with help from the company's tuition reimbursement program.
Still, he says, "I was always looking for an opportunity to return to Lockheed Martin. I kept the network open and eventually I got called back."
He was hired again at Lockheed Martin in 2002, the same year he got his MS in telecommunications from U Denver. As a systems engineer at the company he oversees the Lockheed Martin military space plane program, dealing with the control of classified materials, requests for changes and configuration management.
He works on a variety of projects with small, midsize and large teams that include mostly electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and computer science graduates. There's great diversity around him, which he enjoys. "I have a smile on my face every morning when I get up. Every day here brings something different."
Zaragoza says his perseverance has served him well over the years. "You have to choose a field you enjoy and then not give up. You find your niche and develop your own style," he says. "You also learn from your mistakes. It's a balancing act."
He notes that his family has been his greatest source of strength. "I listen to the ancient voices of my elders, living and departed, which gives me wisdom," he says.
Northrop Grumman's Ray Haynes: engineering leader
Ray Haynes, director of the corporate Technical Alliances Center (TAC) at Northrop Grumman (Redondo Beach, CA), works with Native Americans and other college students. TAC, an internal Web-based program, helps the company's eight business units and 120,000 employees coordinate connections with professional associations, government entities and more than 100 universities nationwide.
Haynes earned his 1967 BS in aerospace engineering and his 1970 MBA at the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), and his 1988 PhD in operations logistics at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ). He has worked in both project systems engineering and corporate engineering. As a professor emeritus at California Polytechnic Institute he's presented and published more than 100 articles, and case studies on engineering management and technical leadership. He's also taught twenty-seven different courses to more than 2,500 students in graduate business and engineering programs.
Haynes is Cherokee, Wolf Clan. He grew up in Nogales, AZ on the Mexican border in a community that blended Native American and Chicano cultures. He says his mixed ethnic background sometimes excluded him from activities that required either Mexican or Indian "blood" affiliation to participate. He persevered, however, and after graduation landed a job as a design engineer for AiResearch Corp (Phoenix, AZ), now part of Honeywell.
Today Haynes is active as an AISES Sequoyah Fellow. He also works with the National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA), the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC) and SHPE, for which he serves in various support roles and as an industry board member.
"My time now is spent primarily in coordinating the activities associated with the TAC Office," says Haynes. He works closely with universities, professional associations and government agencies, and makes sure that the company's leaders and managers are aware of collaborative opportunities for technology development. He makes campus visits to engineering deans and technical faculty, does conference presentations, reviews research, and has "lots of e-mail and phone discussions," he says.
Haynes notes that the fundamentals of education have helped him throughout his career. Those fundamentals haven't changed for today's college students and new hires, he points out. "Regardless of their ethnicity, people will find they have to survive on their skills rather than on just being Native American, African American or Mexican American. Performance is the great equalizer. If they have a good educational foundation, they can go far."
Haynes enjoys people and finds that the good communication skills he has fostered have been a real asset. He has acquired some knowledge of several foreign languages, even if just to say a simple "how are you." He approaches the interview process in much the same way, finding common bonds with those he is meeting. "It helps to build rapport in an interview, so people see you as a person, rather than just another kid looking for a job," he advises.
Haynes also encourages students to cultivate a sense of wonder. "Like every other company, at Northrop Grumman we want to hire the best and the brightest. Often you see students coming out of college with a flawless GPA, and they believe that they know it all, but that only scratches the surface," Haynes says. "No matter how fast you are, there will always be someone faster. A sense of wonder keeps an individual fresh, willing to learn from others and always growing."
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