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Pamala Silas, a member of the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin, is exec director of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES, www.aises.org). Silas is impressed with the participation in and commitment to the community she's seen in Native American engineers and IT pros.
"Our members are making it, not only in the corporate world but also in the tribal community," she says. For example, people in AISES are "passionate about getting science and math into Native community schools."
This kind of commitment, she notes, is an important goal of the society. "Sure, our members want to make their own personal impact on the fields of science and engineering. But we also want to make a difference in our Native communities."
Cherokee Cara Cowan Watts: techie on the tribal council
Cara Cowan Watts is currently pursuing a PhD in biosystems engineering at Oklahoma State University. She already has a 1997 BSME and a 2002 MS in telecom management from Oklahoma State.
She's also an elected representative for District 7 (Rogers County, OK) to the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council in Tahlequah, OK.
Cowan Watts brings her strong technical background to bear on the concerns of her own 13,000 District 7 constituents, and of all the 270,000 citizens of the Cherokee Nation. Although she started a technical career with Hewlett-Packard in Colorado Springs, CO from 1997 to 1999, she plans to teach and continue on the Tribal Council after she finishes her PhD in 2008.
She sees AISES as a critical organization, not only for encouraging the education and careers of individual Natives, but for promoting the development and preservation of natural resources. "Some of the last remaining untapped resources in the U.S., including coal and uranium, are on tribal lands," she notes.
A report by the Department of Energy shows that, while Indian lands make up just 5 percent of the land area of the U.S., they contain an estimated 10 percent of untapped energy resources. "If we are not educated in the proper use of our resources, others will manage them for us," says Cowan Watts.
"Nearly two-thirds of Indian reservations are within fifty miles of a Superfund hazardous waste site," she notes. "Who better to ensure the safety of our reservations than technically trained American Indians?"
Cherokee/Caddo Dr Tsali Cross is a process engineer at Intel
"On the job, I'm often the representative of an entire people, and I'm aware of that," says Dr Tsali Cross. Cross is a wet-etch process engineer for Intel Corp (Santa Clara, CA), which makes microprocessors for computers, servers, networking equipment and communications products.
The wet-etch group, Cross explains, is responsible for flash memory manufacturing, both tools and the chipset itself, plus associated process development. "I'm one of a group of five engineers working on cost savings and reducing the transistor size. We do everything we can to achieve that," he says. He has authored a number of technical publications and made presentations on his work.
Cross has a 1999 BSME, a 2002 MSME and his 2006 PhD, also in ME, from the University of Colorado. He is of Cherokee and Caddo heritage and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. In fact, he was named "Tsali" in honor of a Cherokee leader who died resisting the tribe's removal from the mountains of North Carolina back in the 1830s.
Cross is a member of AISES, and a corporate member of U Colorado's multicultural engineering program advisory council, working on recruiting. "Right now we have seventeen Native Americans enrolled in the engineering program. I think we can do better than that," he says.
Born in Norman, OK, Cross grew up in Durango, CO. "I went to schools where there were very few other Native Americans, but I never thought twice about it," he says. "It prepared me for my career and taught me how to interact with different cultures. My co-workers know me as someone they can talk to."
As an undergrad "I hit my stride in my senior year," he recalls. "I was invited to become involved in R&D on a fabrication process for a microsystem project."
He interned at Sandia National Labs (Albuquerque, NM) while working on his PhD, doing thin-film development for microsystems. "Sandia has a great Native network," he notes.
Cross says he meets very few other Native PhDs in ME. "This is why I'm involved in U Colorado's multicultural engineering program," he says. "The best chance for our people to advance is through education, particularly in engineering. Building infrastructure on the reservations is critical, and it's one way to cut through adversity."
Northern Cheyenne Alicia Littlewolf is a tech staff member at Sandia
Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory operated by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Department of Energy. The lab does R&D for the Departments of Energy and Defense, working on national security and energy assurance projects.
Early this year Alicia Littlewolf joined the labs as a member of technical staff in programming and analysis. Littlewolf has a 1999 BS in environmental science from Rocky Mountain College (Billings, MT) and a 2005 MSCS from Montana State University.
After she completed her MS, Littlewolf worked for Zoot Enterprises Inc (Bozeman, MT) as a QA analyst testing Web apps and system processes. She moved to RightNow Technologies (Bozeman, MT) as a member of the core team, testing customer relationship management (CRM) apps.
Her interest in Sandia dates from an undergraduate summer internship she did there. She worked in a chemical lab, but fellow interns introduced her to CS and the advanced CS research at Sandia. That internship helped her decide on a CS career: "Up until then I was interested in everything," she says.
Sandia recruiters kept in touch with her through grad school. She did another internship at the lab in 2003, and was offered a job in 2006.
At Sandia, Littlewolf is doing software development with three teams, all working on different enterprise information systems that support Sandia's business operations.
Littlewolf, a Northern Cheyenne, grew up on the reservation in southeastern Montana. "I started in reservation schools, but in fifth grade my mom got a job teaching in an off-reservation school so I went there too. It was a good school, but mostly non-Native. I learned to adapt to people who were not Natives, which helped when I went to college."
When she got to Rocky Mountain College she found teachers who expected a lot of her. "The courses were very good and challenging and the teachers encouraged me," she says. "At that time Rocky Mountain and several tribal colleges in Montana participated in a Science and Technology Alliance program with Sandia. The program helped recruit Native students to Sandia for internships, and that's how I got my initial internship at Sandia."
Littlewolf says the hardest thing she ever did was getting her MSCS in an accelerated program. The program condensed three years of undergrad work into a single year, and of the fifteen students who started the program, only three completed it. Littlewolf got married while she was in the program, and her daughter was born a week after she graduated.
Sandia's affinity group for Native Americans
Both Littlewolf, who works at Sandia, and Intel's Cross, who interned there, speak highly of the lab's American Indian affinity group. Navajo/Alaska Native Marie Brown, an EEO analyst, is chair of the American Indian outreach committee at Sandia. She notes that the group has more than 200 members, a mix of administrative and technical staff.
The group focuses on "inreach," the professional development of American Indians at Sandia, and outreach, the effort to hire and retain Natives and encourage potential interns. Inreach pairs seasoned Native employees with newcomers "to help them learn the inner workings of Sandia," Brown says. There's even a group within the group, where American Indian women can get together to discuss issues and concerns, "or just be 'women' for a while."
The affinity group also helps identify Sandia nominees for AISES awards. Sandia's Dr Nancy Jackson received the AISES Professional of the Year award and the labs' John DeBassige was Most Promising Engineer in 2005. In 2006, Sandia National Labs' Dr Chris Cornelius received the society's award for technical excellence.
Eastern Cherokee Daryl E. Martin manages network ops at T-Mobile
Of Eastern Cherokee heritage, Daryl E. Martin is a network ops manager for T-Mobile USA, Inc (Bellevue, WA), the wireless communications company. Martin works out of T-Mobile's Chicago, IL office and is responsible for the training and performance of three network ops supervisors and a dozen technicians.
His team operates and manages switching systems in the Chicago and Milwaukee, WI area. "We are responsible and accountable for how the calls go through," Martin says. "We maintain and support all call processing for subscribers in those areas, as well as voicemail, text messaging and photo messaging."
There is no typical day on Martin's job. He begins each day by making sure that overnight work was done to spec. Then, throughout the day, he addresses any problems that come up with the network. He may meet with vendors, work on budgets or get into high-level market planning with other managers and directors.
He also works on career development for his group. "That's a focus for me on a daily basis," he says.
Martin's background is in field ops, so his recent move to the switching side is an exciting new challenge. He has nine years of telecom experience, including TDMA and GSM networks, and he trained as an electronics technician at Central Texas College.
His telecom career began with the U.S. Army. As an infantryman he spent time in peacekeeping duties in the former Yugoslavia, until an injury during NATO exercises ended his career as a foot soldier. Then the army trained him in communications, and from 1998 to 2001 he served as communications systems team chief at Fort Hood, TX.
He entered civilian telecom with VoiceStream Chicago in 2001. He was a field technician, responsible for cell sites in the Chicago area.
VoiceStream became T-Mobile in 2002, and Martin became a field ops supervisor, responsible for eight field technicians and more than 300 cell sites in Chicago. He went on to field ops manager for the Detroit area in 2004, and for Milwaukee in 2005. This year he returned to Chicago as network ops manager.
Although Martin did not grow up in a Native community, he had a close relationship with his grandmother and great grandfather, who passed on the Cherokee culture and heritage. "My great grandfather lived to be 104 years old, so I got to know him as a young kid. He had a great sense of humor."
Both Martin and his wife are active in their church, and their two small sons provide plenty of family interest.
The leadership skills Martin developed in the army prove invaluable in his job today. "In combat," he reflects, "leadership is critical. Its components are the same for any team: leading by example, building trust and earning the respect of your team."
Ogallala Sioux Kerri Shotwell does software at IBM
Kerri Shotwell is a senior software engineer for IBM (Armonk, NY) at the company's Tucson, AZ location. She leads a team of five working on data storage for the next generation of automated tape libraries. "We write the code that moves the accessor that moves the tapes and puts them into the drive, and then stores data on the tapes," she explains. "I'm primarily responsible for keeping track of what data gets stored on what tape."
Because the team is dealing with many different customers and networks there can be a lot of performance issues. Shotwell's team interacts with large customers like banking systems and department stores, so security is a critical element of the product. Encryption features are added to the data stored on the tapes.
One-quarter Ogallala Sioux, Shotwell grew up in Denver, CO. Her mother came from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Shotwell knew the relatives she visited on the reservation were poor, but, "My own family was pretty poor, too," she notes. It wasn't until she joined the Native American diversity group at IBM Tucson that she realized how serious a problem Natives had. "As I became more involved in the group's outreach, my awareness of all the issues that Native Americans face increased tremendously."
Shotwell completed a BS in math with a minor in CS at the University of Arizona in 1986. It was her sister who convinced her to try computers, she says.
After graduation she found a job as a software designer with Envirotest (Tucson, AZ), a company doing emissions testing for the state. "We also worked on safety programs to test brakes and alignment on New York City taxis and we tested their meters for accuracy," she adds. She started as a junior engineer and had worked up to supervisor by 1996, when she joined IBM as a staff engineer. She moved to the senior level three years ago.
College was not an easy experience for Shotwell. As the young mother of twins she was always pressed for time and not able to take on the internships she would have liked. "But I was always very logical, very left brain, and I did well at math."
Her involvement with the IBM Tucson Native American diversity group has proved to be a valuable experience. The group works with nearby tribes and e-mentors children at a local charter school for Native American kids, who are bused in from remote reservations. It also sets up computer systems at local schools.
"I've worked with some kids from the Navajo Nation," Shotwell notes. "They still go to boarding schools in that area. I can't imagine as a parent what it's like to have your children away all the time."
Her involvement in the diversity group has inspired her to do more. "I coach people on running marathons, and I've been thinking about ways to help Natives with health issues."
Shotwell is also active with a local running group that emphasizes health and fitness and raises funds for the Arizona Cancer Center. This year she took up biking and she plans to begin swimming lessons so she can have the fun of participating in triathlons.
"I was never athletic when I was young, but now I've developed a passion for trying new things," she says.
Eastern Cherokee Steven Vantrease is a project team lead at Toyota
Steven Vantrease works at the Ann Arbor, MI facility of Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America (Erlanger, KY). Like IBM's Shotwell, Vantrease is into running: mostly 10K races. It helps him build the stamina he needs for his job, he says with a smile.
Vantrease is a senior engineer and project team lead in engineering design for functional components at the Toyota technical center in Ann Arbor. He oversees engineering and manufacturing of vehicle body functional parts that move, like sun roofs, power windows, hinges, mirrors and, of course, doors.
"Although I manage the team and have to meet deadlines and targets, I also do some of the design myself," he notes. His day often lasts from 6:30 in the morning until 7:00 at night. He and his team of nine design engineers are with a project from beginning to end. Their current project is new and won't launch for several years.
Vantrease has a 1998 BSME from Ohio State University. As an undergrad he was a research assistant at the school, helping develop the lab portion of the freshman honors engineering program.
After graduation he found a job as a design engineer with Toyota in Ann Arbor. He started on interior design, working on the first movable console for a Toyota vehicle, and designing the door and luggage system for the 2001 Camry. The new luggage system resulted in multi-million dollar savings, he notes: "I have a few patents pending." He moved into his present position in 2005.
Engineering runs in Vantrease's family. His father was an EE in the Department of Defense. "Dad and I would work on cars together and fix TVs," Vantrease recalls. "I enjoyed that a lot." Now his younger sister is getting her PhD in CS.
Vantrease is of Eastern Cherokee heritage. He hasn't become a citizen of the tribe, but his mother and two sisters have. "My mother made sure we knew the background and the history," he says.
"In my engineering courses Toyota was the benchmark," Vantrease notes. "I'm still pretty excited about working for the company. Since I started, the design engineering department has almost doubled in size, and most of the design of cars sold in the U.S. is done here."
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