02/21/2020
NSBE Founder Brian Harris, SBE Treasurer & Chair of the Projects Committee (4/73 -5/75) formulated all social and business plans for the Society of Black Engineers at Purdue University. He managed the logistics for our Big 3 Events:
Oct 1974 - The Equal Opportunity Luncheon
Feb 1975 - The 1st Annual Corporate Banquet
Apr 1975 - The First NSBE Conference
Brian Harris was the First Conference Planning Committee (CPC) Chair in NSBE History. Please join me in a round of applause to thank 👏🏾 Brian for his monumental effort. For those who’ve heard me call Brian “our hardest worker”, this is why!!
For the historical record, note that we published our Calendar of Events for 1974 & 1975. You can view it in this post. For me, there has never been any mystery about what we did and when we did it 📆, it’s all “on the record”📰. We recorded our activities in the first 3 Cornerstone Magazines, you’ll see the cover pages below. I was our first Publications Committee Chair ... it was my job to initially determine the best way to report 🗣 the SBE achievements to our members, high school recruits, and to corporations. Some things never change.
So, how did the Chicago Six pull off the Founding of NSBE? First of all, it was not a single event by a single person. It was a series of events and actions taken by our key advisors, committees, and volunteers.
In summary:
WE DID IT by COMMITTEE 🙌🏾
We did it with the help of Purdue University.
We did it with the help of Dr. Arthur Bond.
We did it with the help of Dr. Saunie Taylor.
We did it with the help of Ed Barnette.
We did it with the help of corporate sponsors.
We did it with the help of many SBE members.
We also did it with the help of SWE.
We did it most importantly, by the Grace of God 🙏🏾
The Big Hair photo 🤣: (L-R) Rudy Nichols, Founder Brian Harris, Founder John Logan.
