ST. LOUIS, Feb. 17, 2000 -- Norma Clayton, vice president of Lean Manufacturing and Quality at the Boeing Military Aircraft and Missile Systems Group, has been named a recipient of the 2000 Black Engineer of the Year Award for Professional Achievement in Industry.
The Black Engineer of the Year Awards recognize the achievements of the country's most successful African American engineers, scientists and technology leaders.
Clayton will be honored on Feb. 19 during the 14th annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md. The conference, hosted by U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine and The Council of Engineering Deans of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, is one of the nation's premier technology events. The conference makes awards in 20 categories, including Professional Achievement. Clayton will receive one of two awards being presented in this category this year. More than 7,000 participants are expected to attend the ceremony. Clayton is the eighth Boeing employee to be honored by the organization.
At the Boeing A&M group, Clayton serves on the executive decision-making team of Mike Sears, president of A&M and senior vice president of The Boeing Company. As the first African-American and the first woman to be a senior manufacturing executive at A&M, Clayton leads the implementation of Lean productivity initiatives and strategies at five manufacturing sites that comprise about 50,000 employees.
She acts as a facilitator and champion for cultural change, providing the guidance, encouragement and resources that allow people to fundamentally change the way Boeing does business.
Clayton joined the company in 1995 as director of the Machining Center in St. Louis. In that capacity, she distinguished herself by implementing a comprehensive restructuring program to improve efficiency and cut costs. She continued to pursue productivity improvements as head of all fabrications operations in St. Louis before being named vice president of Lean Manufacturing.
Clayton describes her job as "simply to get the momentum started in the right direction toward real change. Once I get everyone else moving, I don't focus solely on business results. They will happen. What's more important is focusing on what behaviors are emerging and how the culture is embracing these changes."
Married and the mother of two sons, Clayton, 41, is actively involved in educational and church activities. She is a member of the Board of Regents of Linn State Technical College at Linn, Mo., and the Board of Trustees of the Academy of Science of St. Louis. She has received a Special Leader Award as a member of the YWCA Academy of Leaders and is the director of youth ministry at the First Missionary Baptist Church of Ballwin, Mo.
"The reason that I'm involved in these activities is to give something back to the community," Clayton says. "I believe that we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to be compassionate and understanding, and to share our gifts, our talents and our time in doing things to help others. This is one way in which we can make a positive difference in people's lives."
Clayton also takes time to be a mentor to young people who aspire to be engineers or are in the early stages of their engineering or scientific careers. She believes mentoring is an important way to help future leaders in their development. She urges young people to "seek out mentors with strong leadership qualities that you can emulate. Recognize that you have to be willing to broaden your horizons, try new things and venture into areas that you're not familiar with."
A native of Orange, N.J., Clayton received her bachelor of science degree in industrial administration, with a concentration in industrial engineering and finance, from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1981. Clayton also held positions in manufacturing, procurement, project management and plant operations at Lockheed Martin, General Electric, RCA and General Motors.
00-12
(314) 234-4187