This February, Government Technology & Services Coalition member Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc has been commemorating Black History Month with highlights of Black leadership and achievements at the firm, institutional and employee-led support for Black communities, and partnerships for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Black Booz Allen employees have a long tradition of innovating, shaping culture, and leading at the highest level, and the past year has been no exception.
This year, the Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) STEM Conference honored 10 STEM leaders across the firm as Modern-Day Technology Leaders. Selected by US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, the award recognizes “bright women and men who are shaping the future of engineering, science, and technology.”
BEYA STEM awardees join a long and growing list of Black Booz Allen employees who were honored for their professional contributions:
- The C5ISR Hall of Fame inducted General Dennis Via (ret.), a Booz Allen executive vice president, for his contributions to U.S. Army readiness in the critical areas of combat, control, computers, communications, and cyber in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
- Savoy Network named two members of Booz Allen’s Board of Directors Melody Barnes and Arthur Johnson among its 2021 Most Influential Black Corporate Directors.
- The Society of Women Engineers recognized Data Scientist Sian Lewis with its Spark Award, which honors individuals who support the Society’s core values of integrity, an inclusive environment, mutual support, professional excellence, and trust.
At an institutional level, Booz Allen supports Black communities through targeted grant programs and partnerships. Booz Allen’s Race and Social Equity Grants support employee-nominated nonprofits doing work in the equity space. Over the past year, these grants funded:
- The launch of the Alexandria-Fairfax Kappa Scholarship Endowment Fund’s Aviation for Youth Program
- Internet access and technology for eight families in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of Atlanta Unbound Academy’s efforts to facilitate remote learning
- The winner of the SCORE Black Entrepreneurs Pitch Competition
- Educated 100+ students and their families about financial literacy with the YMCA of Greater Louisville’s Black Achievers Program
Since April 2020, the Booz Allen Foundation’s Innovation Fund has supported the development of creative solutions addressing COVID-19’s wide-ranging impacts. This year’s grantees include the California-based Minority Psychology Network, which in 2021 received a second round of funding for its efforts to bring culturally competent mental health care directly to underserved communities.
In the metropolitan Washington, DC, area, Booz Allen has maintained a longstanding partnership with Capital Partners for Education (CPE). The firm supports CPE’s mission to help students graduate with the skills and experience for sustainable careers through mentorship, sponsorship, and leadership.
Booz Allen has supported the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) through board service, charitable contributions, and volunteerism for more than a decade. Over the past 2 years, this partnership has expanded to include pro bono support.
For SEED SPOT, a Booz Allen pro bono team is working to ensure the nonprofit’s website and data analysis approach represent the diversity of the aspiring entrepreneurs that it serves, without algorithmic bias, and delivers full, equitable access to all content. For the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development’s Family Rehousing and Stabilization Program, a pro bono team is analyzing workforce development-related services. The mission: Determine weaknesses or absences in services related to workforce development and make recommendations for this content and how it’s delivered.
In the firm’s first annual virtual volunteerism marathon with the Taproot Foundation, Booz Allen employees participated in a skills-based volunteerism challenge to build TMCF a turnkey strategy for individual donor outreach. This was one of many skills-based volunteer initiatives designed to strengthen equity-focused programs. Others included developing organizational and management tools for Future Kings, which introduces STEM to boys in underserved communities, and creating onboarding strategies and tools to accommodate record staff expansion for Black Girls CODE.
