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Although no industry can claim to be completely
recession-proof, the momentum of the Internet
and wireless technology should keep the communications
industry hungry for technical talent. African
American professionals fill a wide range of
interesting positions in today’s communications
companies. And in spite of the contraction
taking place in high tech, there are still
great opportunities for new grads.
All the young African American professionals
we interviewed stressed the importance of
internship and co-op experience, and many
pointed to the need for a really good GPA.
But of course it’s not just about the
grades. To swing it in any technical field,
you need to start out with all the knowledge
and knowhow you can possibly accumulate.
Get the experience, get the grades, and
communications becomes a terrific place to
build your career. The ten new grads that
we spoke with are doing that very effectively.
Andrew Cotton:
software development at Alcatel
Andrew Cotton first ran into Alcatel (Plano,
TX), the global communications company, at
a NSBE convention. He started there in July
2000 and currently works as a software development
engineer on Alcatel’s EMX 2500/5000 series
wireless switching system.
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| Software development engineer Andrew Cotton is involved with Alcatel’s EMX 2500/5000 series wireless switching system. |
“This system allows cellular phones
to communicate with residential phones, pagers,
other cell phones and other devices. My job
is to improve product reliability and availability,”
he says.
Cotton
codes in C, Perl, Assembly, and even does
some Unix Shell scripting. He attends design
meetings and gives presentations within the
company.
His technical training began early. He grew
up as the son of a single mother in Meridian,
MS; the family was on a tight budget. “When
a toy broke, I had to fix it or be toyless.
Little did I know I was applying the very
fundamentals of engineering,” he says.
Cotton longed to go to college, but cost
was a big issue. “The phrases ‘abundance
of money’ and ‘single income household’
were not mentioned in the same conversation,”
he says.
But ultimately he prevailed. He attended
a local community college while he saved up
for the University of Southern Mississippi
(Hattiesburg, MS). In May 1998 he received
his BS in computer engineering technology,
followed by an MS in telecom in December 1999,
and his present rewarding job at Alcatel.
He finds Alcatel’s mentoring program
“phenomenal.” He also takes advantage
of Alcatel’s employee support groups,
and does some mentoring of his own as part
of a program for elementary school children.
Cotton likes Alcatel’s appreciation
of diversity. “Responsibility here comes
with credibility, not ethnicity. African Americans
and people of other ethnic origins make very
important business decisions for this company
every day.”
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| Dr
Mark Smith |
At Lucent, Dr Mark Smith
is a member of technical staff
Movies can be great for your career. As a
kid on the island of Jamaica, Mark Smith saw
the movie WarGames. “That’s what
got me into computer science,” he says.
“I never actually used a computer in
Jamaica, but I knew that was what I wanted
to do.”
When Smith was sixteen years old he moved
to Brooklyn, NY, just in time for the last
half of his senior year in high school. He
finally got together with a basic computer
course. “It wasn’t quite like the
movies, but I liked it,” he says.
At the time, Smith’s aunt was a student
at the City University of New York, and encouraged
him to apply. “They accepted my high
school credits from Jamaica,” he says.
He enrolled at Brooklyn College and graduated
in 1989 with a degree in computer science.
In his senior year, Smith learned about
the Cooperative Research Fellowship Program
(CRFP), a fellowship for minority CS students
sponsored by AT&T. The program put him
to work at Bell Labs in New Jersey for the
summer before he started a masters program
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT,
Cambridge, MA).
Smith’s studies went on for more than
ten marvelous years. He worked with an AT&T
mentor and spent his summers conducting research
in various company labs. After completing
his PhD in CS at MIT in 1997, he spent two
years doing post-doctoral research in an AT&T
lab. Then it was on to a year in France as
a visiting researcher at the government-sponsored
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique
et en Automatique (INRIA).
When he returned to the U.S. in 2000, he
began working at Lucent Technologies (Warren,
NJ), which had spun off from AT&T. “I
chose Lucent mostly because of the relationship
I already had with the company,” he says.
Today, Smith is a member of technical staff
doing research at Bell Labs, which is now
part of Lucent. “I’m working on
Internet routing problems,” he explains.
“We want a more efficient way to route
more traffic faster, over a shorter distance.”
For a man who’s spent half his life
in CS, Smith uses a rather primitive tool
set: pencil and paper. “I work with mathematical
models. The hard part is coming up with good
algorithms,” he says. Of course, once
he has an algorithm he thinks will work he
moves to an in-house linear programming tool
to validate it.
Working in research has fringe benefits: flextime
and telecommuting are the norm. “The
nature of the work allows it,” Smith
says. He travels only occasionally, to technical
conferences.
“The technical community is not immune
to racism,” Smith says, “but if
you do good work, you will be rewarded.”
He says that he has never encountered discrimination
at Lucent: “I feel comfortable here.”
This past summer Smith took on an intern
to mentor. “I wish I had known about
the internships available to undergraduates,”
he says. He also sits on the committee that
decides on fellowship recipients. “Network,”
is his advice to students. “Get to know
your professors. When we consider fellowship
candidates, we often go to their professors
to find out about them.”
Paulisha Latty:
data ops at Verizon Wireless
Paulisha Latty loves her career in the wireless
industry. “It’s always changing.
Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
Just as one thing is introduced, something
bigger and better comes along.” As an
associate technician in data systems at Verizon
Wireless (Annapolis Junction, MD), Latty has
the opportunity to see plenty of things coming.
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| Associate technician Paulisha Latty interfaces
with networking equipment in data systems
ops at Verizon Wireless. |
When Latty was in high school in Capital
Heights, MD, every classroom had its computer
– but few of them were used much. “I
volunteered to learn how to use them and teach
other students,” she says. Eventually
Latty and other interested students got together
with a teacher to form a computer science
course, plus an after-school class where students
learned how to build and use computers.
When she started college at Morgan State
University (Baltimore, MD), she declared an
electrical engineering major, even though
she wasn’t quite sure what she would
do with the degree. In her sophomore year
she heard about a summer internship at Verizon
Wireless. By the end of the three-month stint,
“I knew that I wanted to remain in the
communications industry,” she says.
During her internship Latty did hands-on
work in five different groups in the network
department. Her supervisors encouraged her
to take communications courses at school,
so she signed up for an introductory course.
The following semester she changed her major,
working toward a business degree in information
systems.
She continued working part-time for Verizon.
“I loved how I was able to apply what
I learned in school to what I was doing at
work,” she says.
When she graduated this past May, Latty
went straight to Verizon, where she was offered
her choice of system performance or data operations
work. She chose data ops, working with networking
equipment like Cisco routers, asynchronous
transfer mode devices and switches, because
it was closer to what she had studied.
Right now, Latty spends her time “learning
as much as I can about the systems that we
are running, learning how the equipment interacts
with other equipment, and attending training
classes.” She finds she fits in well
with her colleagues.
“I see other African Americans in
prominent positions within the company,”
she says. “I can see myself eventually
obtaining a prominent position here.”
At AT&T Wireless, Christie Moore
does software development
Growing up, “It was just understood that
going to college was something you did,”
says Christie Moore. “If I had ever said
I didn’t plan to go to college, then
I would have heard about it!”
Moore grew up in New York City and then
in Alexandria, VA. In high school she excelled
in math, so computer science seemed a logical
major in college. She received her BS in 1999
from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
State University (Greensboro, NC).
While in college, Moore did an internship
with AT&T in Atlanta, GA. She worked as
a Visual Basic programmer, programming gas
pumps to accept debit and credit cards. “There
wasn’t a lot of coding. It was mostly
sending information back and forth,”
she says. But she liked it all the same.
“I got a good look at the telecommunications
industry,” she says. “I liked the
idea of a constantly changing industry. In
telecom, we absolutely have to stay on top
of the very latest technologies.”
Today Moore is a software developer for
AT&T Wireless, but she didn’t get
the job through her internship. Instead, when
she graduated she went to work for Vanguard
Cellular Systems (Greensboro, NC) – which
was purchased by AT&T just a few weeks
later.
She found Vanguard at a career fair sponsored
by her college. “I kept pushing myself
on people,” she recalls. “I gave
them my resume and asked for an on-the-spot
interview.” After that interview and
one other, she had her job.
At work at AT&T, Moore does much of
her coding in C++, and she also uses Java,
Java Messaging Service, XML, and MQ Series,
an interface that holds information in a queue
until it’s needed. She designs modeling
aspects in Rational Rose, and uses the models
to develop test cases.
AT&T Wireless keeps its developers
involved in all parts of the company. Moore
receives regular e-mail updates on what’s
going on. She also sits in on design decision
meetings, and her team gets to make some of
the architectural decisions.
Moore enjoys her job. “The experience
is here and the benefits are excellent. They
make it hard to even consider leaving.”
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| Tameka Jackson is a lead engineer in the
product development group of Lucent’s
AG Communication Systems subsidiary |
At AGCS, Tameka Jackson
is a lead in product development
AG Communication Systems (AGCS, Phoenix, AZ),
a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies, makes
equipment for telephone service providers.
Tameka Jackson is a lead engineer in the company’s
product development group.
“Our flagship product, the GDT-5,
is essentially an enormous specialized computer
that allows access to services like voicemail
and call waiting,” she says. “About
17 million end users get their dial tone through
a GDT-5.”
Jackson grew up in Shreveport, LA. She
thought about a career in accounting, but
her mentor, an engineer who went to her church,
advised her to consider engineering instead.
In the end, she got a scholarship to Fort
Valley State University (Fort Valley, GA)
to study electrical engineering.
But when she took that introductory computer
course, she found something that she really
enjoyed. She graduated in May 1997 with a
BSCS.
During her senior year Jackson attended
a job fair. “I handed out my resume to
anyone who would take it. I never expected
to hear from anyone.” But AGCS called
and flew her to Phoenix for an interview.
Although Jackson hadn’t heard of the
company, she was impressed with what it had
to offer. She accepted a position as a software
developer.
At AGCS, engineers move up through seven
technical levels based on skills, performance,
experience and knowledge. Jackson has already
been promoted twice. She hopes that when she
completes the MS in technology management
that she’s working on at the University
of Phoenix, she’ll be able to take on
additional responsibilities.
Jackson is already involved in every aspect
of software development. She sits in on meetings,
helps determine design requests, writes code
in Pascal, assembler and an in-house higher-level
language called Telelogic, tests the product
in the lab and documents the results.
“I’m always working on several
projects at once, all in different stages
of development,” she says. “I enjoy
it because I get experience in different areas,
and it keeps me organized. I think women are
better at multitasking than men.”
Jackson loves the cutting-edge technologies
she’s helping to develop for the communications
industry. “Everything is moving to the
Internet,” she says. “We’re
enabling customers who have invested billions
of dollars in voice networks to add in data
gateways instead of rebuilding their networks
from scratch.”
When she first came to Phoenix, Jackson says,
she was a little worried about fitting in.
But her first manager was another African
American woman and “That made a big difference.
She had a big impact on my staying with the
company.” Now Jackson is helping others,
as part of a team that works to recruit and
retain diverse women engineers.
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| Omar
Bowers |
At Unisys, Omar Bowers
enjoys online research
Omar Bowers loves the diversity of his IT
job in e-business. E-biz, taking place over
the Internet, is an exciting new sector of
the communications industry. “You interact
with a wide array of technologies as well
as individuals. It changes and grows every
day, and there’s always more to achieve
in such a quickly evolving field,” he
says.
Like many young technical professionals,
Bowers discovered computers through the Internet.
While he was growing up in White Plains, NY,
his father encouraged him to research his
Jamaican heritage. “I could access historic
sources and personal accounts online,”
he says. “It was really interesting.”
Bowers went to Drexel University (Philadelphia,
PA), where he studied business administration
with a concentration in marketing and management
information systems. Drexel requires students
to complete three six-month co-ops, and offers
a searchable database of opportunities to
get them started. “A co-op at Unisys
caught my attention because it was a marketing-oriented
position in a Fortune 500 company,” says
Bowers.
During his three Unisys co-ops, Bowers
researched Internet service providers and
created a rating system to rank them. His
manager “played a key role in my career
development process,” he recalls with
appreciation.
Bowers got his BS in business administration
in June 2000 and began working full-time at
Unisys a week later. He’s still doing
research, looking into markets for new business
development for the Unisys Global eBusiness
Group. Much of the work is done online, and
he uses MS Office to build financial models
and presentations.
“I recently helped write the business
plan for a new eBusiness program that was
launched in June. I am also managing and mentoring
two interns,” Bowers reports.
Bowers loves to interact with Unisys people
who are “passionate about their work
and highly qualified in their fields.”
And he’s happy to note that even during
his short time on the job, the number of minorities
at Unisys has increased.
Maria Thomas: systems admin
at Ericsson IPI
“I admit that my initial reason for entering
the field was the money,” says Maria
Thomas. As a systems/network administrator
at Ericsson IP Infrastructure (IPI, Silver
Springs, MD), Thomas is in the heart of communications.
Ericsson is the company that claims to make
the mobile Internet revolution “an everyday
thing.”
“I knew IT was one of the fastest-growing
sectors and that there was a high demand for
skilled professionals. But now, it’s
not just the money. I love doing this! It’s
a never-ending learning atmosphere.”
Thomas grew up in Glenarden, MD and spent
her first year of college at Morgan State
University as an information systems major.
Then she transferred to Bowie State University
(Bowie, MD), where she completed her BS in
computer technology in December 2000.
During her junior year at Bowie, Thomas
landed an internship at Ericsson IPI through
the power of networking. “A family friend
recommended me as an intern to the systems/network
administrator. The internship turned into
full-time employment after graduation.”
Most of the company’s software and
hardware engineers are Unix-based users who
run Free BSD 4.2 or Solaris 8. “As a
systems/network administrator I have no set
day-to-day tasks except for maybe changing
the backup tape,” she says with a smile.
“You just pick up where you left off
the day before.” Among the tasks she
picks up, Thomas counts end-user support,
PC troubleshooting, network admin, hardware
repair and software support.
“Of the women who work at Ericsson
IPI, only half are technical, and I’m
the only African American,” Thomas notes.
“But Ericsson is a wonderful place to
work no matter who you are. Everyone seems
to fit in here.
“I am currently an entry level admin
but I could eventually be an IT manager or
venture off to another technical position
with the right training and experience,”
she says. “I see plenty of room for advancement
here.”
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| Jean Cidel of TRW: “I got excited
about the aerospace industry.” |
Jean Cidel:
signal processing at TRW
When Jean Cidell was three years old his parents
moved from Haiti to Miami, FL. He grew up
encouraged to take advantage of all the opportunities
America afforded, and when it came time to
choose a college he settled on Florida A&M
(Tallahassee, FL). A test at A&M’s
career center steered him into engineering,
and he completed his BSEE in 1998.
Then he discovered TRW Space & Electronics
(Redondo Beach, CA), a company that solves
signal processing problems in electronic payloads
for government and commercial companies. “I
met them at a career fair. I hadn’t heard
of them before, but I got excited about the
aerospace industry and building satellites.
I liked the technology and the idea of doing
a variety of things.”
He left his resume with the recruiter and
followed up a few weeks later. “The followup
is important,” he says. “Companies
like to see motivation.” He was invited
to California for an interview, and in 1999
he came aboard as a member of tech staff in
systems engineering.
His time is split between working at his
desk and meeting with others to collaborate
on projects. “My position requires a
broad background,” Cidel notes. “I
code in C and work with commercial and in-house
tools. I mostly work on end-to-end budgets
to assess the performance of certain systems.
It’s a fairly complex process.”
The job position requires a masters degree,
which TRW paid for him to complete at the
University of Southern California (Los Angeles,
CA).
When Cidel started at TRW, it was a bit
of a culture shock to be in an environment
where few people looked like him. “I’m
used to it now,” he says, “and I
see diversity efforts being realized within
the company.”
Cidel takes part in recruiting efforts
at Florida A&M, and enjoys the opportunity
to encourage others to get into the exciting
field. “The communications industry has
come a long way, and there’s still no
sign of technology slowing down. Everything
is cutting edge,” he says.
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| As a WebSphere application and integration
middleware consultant, Odell Clanton enables
e-biz for IBM customers. |
Odell Clanton: WebSphere
e-biz enabling at IBM
It’s all because he was deprived as a
child, says Odell D. Clanton III with a twinkle
in his eye. When he was about eight years
old, the Nintendo video game players hit the
youth market like a bomb. Could young Clanton
have one? No.
“My mother bought me a computer,”
he says. “No one else had one of those.
I was really depressed.”
But what a jump start! “Eventually
I learned about programming in Basic and I
got into it. In high school, I took classes
in Pascal and C. By the time I was a senior,
I was student-teaching the programming classes.”
As a sophomore in high school in Durham,
NC, Clanton got involved in Inroads, the intern
program for talented minority youth. “I
interned at IBM over the summer and part-time
during the school year,” he recalls.
His internship involved hands-on technical
experience, coding in a proprietary language
similar to C.
Clanton always wanted to go to college.
As a track athlete in high school he was recruited
by several prestigious colleges. But he decided
to follow in his parents’ footsteps and
go to the state university, North Carolina
A&T (Greensboro, NC). He got his BSCS
in 1998, and an MSCS in 2000.
He returned to IBM full-time in 1998 to
work as a WebSphere application and integration
middleware consultant based in Research Triangle
Park, NC. The Websphere family of products,
he explains, enables companies to do e-business
over the Internet.
“In previous assignments I could learn
one language and get by,” he reports,
“but WebSphere is cutting edge and forces
you to keep up with everything.” On a
daily basis, Clanton works with Enterprise
Java Beans, XML, Java and more. “Basically,
I have to be able to teach clients how to
solve their own problems. If I’m not
with a client, I’m reading and studying
so that I’ll be able to answer their
questions. I have to keep that edge.”
As a consultant, Clanton travels a lot
– even as far as France, where he recently
taught a class. “You have to have the
stomach for travel,” he says. “I
like it, and I’m usually home for the
weekend.”
The consultants in his group travel about
70 percent of the time. “We hardly ever
see each other,” Clanton says. “We
use instant messaging and e-mail. We all have
cell phones. Even when I’m away from
the office, the backup is there 100 percent.”
Currently, Clanton is involved in mentoring
new Inroads interns and tutoring elementary
school kids in math and science. He also consults
with A&T students to help them plan their
careers. “I tell them to get into a good
internship program,” he says. “Programs
like Inroads lead you to companies that help
you grow.”
Clanton likes working for IBM. “There
are a lot of nurturing people here. I credit
a lot of my success to strong mentoring relationships
with people here.”
IBM has many African Americans in prominent
positions, and they make themselves accessible
to others who might want to benefit from their
knowledge, Clanton says. “I can sit down
and talk to powerful people. I feel that IBM
has an interest in my success.
“Communications offers unlimited possibilities,
and anything you want to do in technology,
you can do it at IBM,” Clanton concludes.
D/C
Abbi Perets is a freelance
writer based in the Los Angeles area.
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