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"John Slaughter has compiled a lifetime of achievements resulting from his pioneering work as an engineer and as a black national leader. And because he cultivated new frontiers in both science and opportunities for African Americans , his profound accomplishments helped pave the way for today's generation of African-American leaders."

Al Zollar, General Manager Lotus Development Corporation

Dr. John Brooks Slaughter
2001 Alvaro L. Martins Heritage Award

As President and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), Dr. John Brooks Slaughter directs the nation's largest private source of scholarships for minorities in engineering. Since 1980, the Council has provided scholarships to more than 7,000 African American, American Indian and Latino college graduates who have gone on to become leaders in engineering and technology, and in math and science-based careers.

A pioneer in his own right, Dr. Slaughter began his professional career as an electronics engineer at General Dynamics and spent 15 years at the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego. He has said that the first black engineer he ever met was himself, when he graduated from Kansas State University in 1956 with a B.A. in electrical engineering.

Dr. Slaughter has worked diligently in the arenas of education, public policy and philanthropy to ensure that the inclusion of minorities in all arenas of American life is less of a rarity. Dr. Slaughter is president emeritus of Occidental College, the former director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the former chancellor of the University of Maryland at College Park, and he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be Assistant Director of Astronomical, Atmospheric, Earth and Ocean Sciences at NSF. He sits on the boards of IBM, Northrop Grumman, and Solutia.