Friday, August 10, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Seth's Blog
Seth's Blog - Reading Seth's Blog is like having your favorite uncle give you advice while he is drunk. It is obvious that he is telling you the truth. It is also obvious that knowing the truth and living the truth is not so easy. But, most importantly, you have to wonder if you don't take the heartfelt words seriously are you going to miss some vital part of life.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, January 22, 2010
Nathelyne Archie Kennedy
President & CEO of Kennedy and Associates
Kennedy was the first female engineering graduate at Prairie View A & M University and probably the first African-American woman in the State to become registered as a P. E. – Professional Engineer. She founded Nathelyne A. Kennedy & Associates, not merely a company of her own, but a minority-owned, a woman-owned, and a women-operated civil/ structural consulting engineering firm-in Houston, Texas. A dedicated and progressive professional, Kennedy and her company have garnered awards, honors, and citations of achievement for both business excellence and community service. Among these have been the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County’s “2001 Business Development Success Story,” the City of Houston’s Outstanding MWBE Contractor in Professional Services,” U. S. Black Engineer’s “Entrepreneur of the Year,” the National Association of Black Accountants’ “Distinguished Business Achievement,” the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering “Distinguished Service and Contributions,” and the United States Small Business Administration’s prestigious “Minority Business Woman of the Year Award”. Nathelyne Archie Kennedy is a dream-weaver. She has always been the consummate architect of extraordinary personal aspirations. Yet, during 20 years of successful entrepreneurship she has never lost sight of the greatest dream of all – equal career opportunity and professional success for every working person
Kennedy was the first female engineering graduate at Prairie View A & M University and probably the first African-American woman in the State to become registered as a P. E. – Professional Engineer. She founded Nathelyne A. Kennedy & Associates, not merely a company of her own, but a minority-owned, a woman-owned, and a women-operated civil/ structural consulting engineering firm-in Houston, Texas. A dedicated and progressive professional, Kennedy and her company have garnered awards, honors, and citations of achievement for both business excellence and community service. Among these have been the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County’s “2001 Business Development Success Story,” the City of Houston’s Outstanding MWBE Contractor in Professional Services,” U. S. Black Engineer’s “Entrepreneur of the Year,” the National Association of Black Accountants’ “Distinguished Business Achievement,” the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering “Distinguished Service and Contributions,” and the United States Small Business Administration’s prestigious “Minority Business Woman of the Year Award”. Nathelyne Archie Kennedy is a dream-weaver. She has always been the consummate architect of extraordinary personal aspirations. Yet, during 20 years of successful entrepreneurship she has never lost sight of the greatest dream of all – equal career opportunity and professional success for every working person
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Engineer Girl Annual Essay Contest!
Every year the National Academy of Engineering sponsors an engineering essay contest on the Engineer Girl website for students across the nation. The contest for this year, entitled “Survival Design Challenge”, has just been posted. Students in grades 3-12 can compete for cash prizes.
You can find the announcement, guidelines, and related information about the contest on the EngineerGirl website: http://www.engineergirl.org/CMS/Contest.aspx
The deadline for this year is March 1, 2010.
Contact: EngineerGirl@nae.edu.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Female Inventor-Entrepreneur from the 1800s
There was a time when American women could not vote, own property, or attend college. Women were considered to have no practical or mechanical abilities and absolutely no business sense, the idea of a female inventor-entrepreneur was not readily accepted. Despite the odds, Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker became rich and famous for her inventions.
Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker, who preferred to be called Madam C. J. Walker, was one of the most successful African-American entrepreneurs of her time—a woman who had considerable ingenuity and business know-how. In fact, she was the first self-made woman millionaire in the country.
Sarah Breedlove was born on December 23, 1867, to Owen and Minerva Breedlove in Louisiana, just across the river from Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was the first of her parents' three children to be born free. Her parents both died seven years later, in a yellow fever epidemic. She and her older sister tried to manage by taking in laundry, but finally Sarah tried to escape her predicament by marrying Moses McWilliams when she was 14. The couple had a daughter, Lelia (later known as A'Lelia), in 1885. Then just two years later, McWilliams was killed in an automobile accident. Sarah was down on her luck again, this time with a daughter to feed. She decided to head north, took in laundry, and sent her daughter to public schools. The stress of her situation plus other factors began to make her hair fall out, and she tried to find an ointment that would stop the hair loss. She even tried selling one that was on the market, but it didn't work for her, so it was difficult to sound very convincing. She was desperate until one day she had a dream that, she said, supplied the secret formula for a hair loss treatment that would work. She tried her formula and it worked for her, so she shared it with friends. She began to realize that most hair treatments and pomades were designed for white women, who had completely different concerns—more interested in curling their hair than straightening it. She began by selling her hair ointment to friends and acquaintances. In 1905, she heard that her brother had died in Denver, Colorado. His wife and two daughters were in need, and Sarah devised a plan that involved going to Denver, which she did, arriving with no more than two dollars in her pocket. Her two products were the hair ointment and a hot steel comb with wide teeth that worked well on African Americans' thick, wiry hair. An acquaintance, C. J. Walker, advised her to place some ads in black newspapers, which she did. She and C. J. married in 1906 and he helped set up the new business, which flourished. However, they had different goals. Sarah was willing to risk everything on trying to make big money; C. J. liked to play it safe. They divorced in 1912, but she kept her moniker, "Madam C. J." and he continued to sell product for her company. Walker had brought her daughter Lelia into the business in 1906, and by 1910, they had moved the company headquarters to Indianapolis.
Walker preceded Mary Kay Cosmetics by several years with the concept of hiring and training salespeople to demonstrate and sell the products door to door. By 1917, the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company was a multimillion-dollar success story. It was, in fact, the largest black-owned business in the country.
That same year, Walker made one of her greatest statements of success by building an impressive 20-room dwelling in Irvington, New York, on the Hudson River. Always committed to supporting black enterprise, Walker chose a black architect. She named the place Villa Lewaro and furnished it opulently, including a gilded piano.
Eager to add to her achievements, she continued to travel tirelessly, pouring her energy into making her business ever bigger and even more successful. Finally, in 1919 on a trip to St. Louis, Walker collapsed. She was hurried home by private railroad car. On May 25, 1919, her kidneys failed due to high blood pressure, and Madam C. J. Walker died.
From: African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention, A to Z of African Americans.
Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker, who preferred to be called Madam C. J. Walker, was one of the most successful African-American entrepreneurs of her time—a woman who had considerable ingenuity and business know-how. In fact, she was the first self-made woman millionaire in the country.
Sarah Breedlove was born on December 23, 1867, to Owen and Minerva Breedlove in Louisiana, just across the river from Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was the first of her parents' three children to be born free. Her parents both died seven years later, in a yellow fever epidemic. She and her older sister tried to manage by taking in laundry, but finally Sarah tried to escape her predicament by marrying Moses McWilliams when she was 14. The couple had a daughter, Lelia (later known as A'Lelia), in 1885. Then just two years later, McWilliams was killed in an automobile accident. Sarah was down on her luck again, this time with a daughter to feed. She decided to head north, took in laundry, and sent her daughter to public schools. The stress of her situation plus other factors began to make her hair fall out, and she tried to find an ointment that would stop the hair loss. She even tried selling one that was on the market, but it didn't work for her, so it was difficult to sound very convincing. She was desperate until one day she had a dream that, she said, supplied the secret formula for a hair loss treatment that would work. She tried her formula and it worked for her, so she shared it with friends. She began to realize that most hair treatments and pomades were designed for white women, who had completely different concerns—more interested in curling their hair than straightening it. She began by selling her hair ointment to friends and acquaintances. In 1905, she heard that her brother had died in Denver, Colorado. His wife and two daughters were in need, and Sarah devised a plan that involved going to Denver, which she did, arriving with no more than two dollars in her pocket. Her two products were the hair ointment and a hot steel comb with wide teeth that worked well on African Americans' thick, wiry hair. An acquaintance, C. J. Walker, advised her to place some ads in black newspapers, which she did. She and C. J. married in 1906 and he helped set up the new business, which flourished. However, they had different goals. Sarah was willing to risk everything on trying to make big money; C. J. liked to play it safe. They divorced in 1912, but she kept her moniker, "Madam C. J." and he continued to sell product for her company. Walker had brought her daughter Lelia into the business in 1906, and by 1910, they had moved the company headquarters to Indianapolis.
Walker preceded Mary Kay Cosmetics by several years with the concept of hiring and training salespeople to demonstrate and sell the products door to door. By 1917, the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company was a multimillion-dollar success story. It was, in fact, the largest black-owned business in the country.
That same year, Walker made one of her greatest statements of success by building an impressive 20-room dwelling in Irvington, New York, on the Hudson River. Always committed to supporting black enterprise, Walker chose a black architect. She named the place Villa Lewaro and furnished it opulently, including a gilded piano.
Eager to add to her achievements, she continued to travel tirelessly, pouring her energy into making her business ever bigger and even more successful. Finally, in 1919 on a trip to St. Louis, Walker collapsed. She was hurried home by private railroad car. On May 25, 1919, her kidneys failed due to high blood pressure, and Madam C. J. Walker died.
From: African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention, A to Z of African Americans.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Ada Irene Pressman - Power and Pressure
Born: 1927 Died: 2003
Occupation: engineer
Nationality: American
From: Encyclopedia of World Scientists, Revised Edition.
Control systems engineer Ada Irene Pressman has been a leading authority in power plant controls and process instrumentation. She has specialized in creating shutdown systems for nuclear power plants and has also sought to ensure that the turbines, steam engines, and reactors in nuclear power plants work together properly. In addition, she has developed an important technology for emergency systems—a secondary cooling system that operates from a diesel generator in case primary power at a plant is lost. Thanks to efforts such as these, Pressman is credited with vastly improving the safety of both nuclear and fossil fuel power plants for workers and residents living near such plants. Moreover, she has bolstered the status of control systems engineers by successfully lobbying the state engineering board of California to recognize the specialty as a distinct engineering field.
Pressman was born on March 3, 1927, in Sydney, Ohio. Although she planned to become a secretary after high school, her father encouraged her to attend college. Following his advice, she enrolled at Ohio State University. She earned her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1950, after only two years of course work.
In 1950, Pressman took her first job as a product engineer at Bailey Meter Company in Cleveland, Ohio. At Bailey, Pressman specialized in the areas of process flow, instrumentation, and control engineering for increasingly complex fossil fuel plants. She also designed boiler controls and burner management systems. She left the company in 1955 because of the limited opportunities for advancement that were afforded her.
After severing her ties with Bailey, Pressman accepted a position as a project engineer at Bechtel Corporation in Los Angeles, California. From 1955 to 1964, she played a key role in the industry-wide shift toward more automated controls of equipment and systems at power plants. In particular, Pressman helped to improve the precision and reliability of sensors and controls. In 1964, she was promoted to instrument group leader at Bechtel. With the advancement came new responsibilities, including heading the design and construction of four power generation units. In 1968, Pressman was tapped to head the systems engineering group at Bechtel's Rancho Seco, a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant. (The first nuclear power plant built away from a major body of water, it posed major engineering challenges.) After serving as Bechtel's assistant chief control systems engineer from 1971 to 1974, Pressman was again promoted to chief control systems engineer. In this capacity, she managed 18 design teams, responsible for more than 20 power-generating plants worldwide. While successfully fulfilling her duties at Bechtel, she earned her master's of business administration from Golden Gate University, in San Francisco, California, in 1974.
On top of all of her other responsibilities, Pressman was also active in a number of professional organizations and strove to raise the profile of her branch of engineering. In the 1970s, she campaigned successfully to have control systems engineering classified as a separate discipline by the California engineering board. She then became the first person to register in the new field. These efforts enhanced the professional status of other control systems engineers. In addition, Pressman was dedicated to promoting women's careers in the sciences.
From 1979 to 1980, she served as the president of the Society of Women Engineers.
Pressman retired from Bechtel in 1987. Her career was marked by numerous awards, including the E. G. Bailey Award from the Instrument Society of America and the Outstanding Engineer Merit Award. Moreover, the Society of Women Engineers bestowed on her its Annual Achievement Award in 1976. Pressman died in 2003.
Occupation: engineer
Nationality: American
From: Encyclopedia of World Scientists, Revised Edition.
Control systems engineer Ada Irene Pressman has been a leading authority in power plant controls and process instrumentation. She has specialized in creating shutdown systems for nuclear power plants and has also sought to ensure that the turbines, steam engines, and reactors in nuclear power plants work together properly. In addition, she has developed an important technology for emergency systems—a secondary cooling system that operates from a diesel generator in case primary power at a plant is lost. Thanks to efforts such as these, Pressman is credited with vastly improving the safety of both nuclear and fossil fuel power plants for workers and residents living near such plants. Moreover, she has bolstered the status of control systems engineers by successfully lobbying the state engineering board of California to recognize the specialty as a distinct engineering field.
Pressman was born on March 3, 1927, in Sydney, Ohio. Although she planned to become a secretary after high school, her father encouraged her to attend college. Following his advice, she enrolled at Ohio State University. She earned her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1950, after only two years of course work.
In 1950, Pressman took her first job as a product engineer at Bailey Meter Company in Cleveland, Ohio. At Bailey, Pressman specialized in the areas of process flow, instrumentation, and control engineering for increasingly complex fossil fuel plants. She also designed boiler controls and burner management systems. She left the company in 1955 because of the limited opportunities for advancement that were afforded her.
After severing her ties with Bailey, Pressman accepted a position as a project engineer at Bechtel Corporation in Los Angeles, California. From 1955 to 1964, she played a key role in the industry-wide shift toward more automated controls of equipment and systems at power plants. In particular, Pressman helped to improve the precision and reliability of sensors and controls. In 1964, she was promoted to instrument group leader at Bechtel. With the advancement came new responsibilities, including heading the design and construction of four power generation units. In 1968, Pressman was tapped to head the systems engineering group at Bechtel's Rancho Seco, a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant. (The first nuclear power plant built away from a major body of water, it posed major engineering challenges.) After serving as Bechtel's assistant chief control systems engineer from 1971 to 1974, Pressman was again promoted to chief control systems engineer. In this capacity, she managed 18 design teams, responsible for more than 20 power-generating plants worldwide. While successfully fulfilling her duties at Bechtel, she earned her master's of business administration from Golden Gate University, in San Francisco, California, in 1974.
On top of all of her other responsibilities, Pressman was also active in a number of professional organizations and strove to raise the profile of her branch of engineering. In the 1970s, she campaigned successfully to have control systems engineering classified as a separate discipline by the California engineering board. She then became the first person to register in the new field. These efforts enhanced the professional status of other control systems engineers. In addition, Pressman was dedicated to promoting women's careers in the sciences.
From 1979 to 1980, she served as the president of the Society of Women Engineers.
Pressman retired from Bechtel in 1987. Her career was marked by numerous awards, including the E. G. Bailey Award from the Instrument Society of America and the Outstanding Engineer Merit Award. Moreover, the Society of Women Engineers bestowed on her its Annual Achievement Award in 1976. Pressman died in 2003.
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