BEYA

BEYA Awardees
BEYA Awardees

BEYA

Celebrating Trailblazers


CACI recognizes its 21 remarkable science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) honorees who received the 2024 Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) Outstanding Achievement Award. These individuals are pioneers in their respective fields, embody excellence and innovation, and are breaking barriers. 

We applaud their accomplishments and recognize the power of diverse perspectives in driving advancements that shape our technological landscape.

 

Meet The Honorees

Jackie W. 
Baker

Felicha 
Burke

Cynthia 
Canteen-Harbor

Colin 
Carter

Chamara 
Farmer

Tyrone J. 
Fenwick

Ray 
Freeman

Robert 
Funches

Marcus 
Getachew

Nikki 
Jackson

Rebecca 
Konnor

Mohamed “Lama” 
Mansaray

Latosha 
Marshall

Andrew 
Noonoo

Roberto 
Perry

Shermane 
Pressley

Joshua 
Reda

Devon 
Roberson

Coleen Y. 
Robinson

Xavier 
Teal

Vanessa 
Watkins

 
Jackie W. Baker

Jackie W. Baker is an IT Network Engineer with a range of expertise developed through his decades of experience in configuration, installation, operation of communications, and encryption equipment.

As a veteran of both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, Baker came to CACI 22 years ago to continue serving his country. He works to guide and transform communications operations into many integrated networks and cyber/data processing centers. He’s overseen about 80 IT projects, using his knowledge in communication platform systems within the Department of Defense community to execute these projects. Baker is a respected industry mentor who continues supporting the IT community while developing the evolving foundational skills used within the tradecraft.

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Felicha Burke

Felicha Burke is a Senior Systems Engineer supporting an Intelligence Community customer’s compliance and cybersecurity operations.

She’s earned praise for her work to automate and improve the customer’s ability to rapidly and accurately respond to Congressional inquiries and Freedom of Information Act audit requests. Burke also led User Acceptance Testing for multiple critical products, ensuring the delivered capability met the requirements and user experience goals. A 22-year veteran of the systems engineering industry, Burke has been involved in her community through such organizations as the National Society of Black Engineers and the youth basketball initiative, Hoopstartz, which she helped found.

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Cynthia Canteen-Harbor

Cynthia Canteen-Harbor is a Senior Technical Program Manager who creates better health outcomes nationwide by helping shape the future of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network program.

Canteen-Harbor’s two-decade career spans roles of increasing responsibility in the technology industry, showcasing a track record of success in developing IT portfolios, programs, project management, and internal communications strategies. She is also known as a mentor, advocate, and champion for women and girls in STEM. She has supported organizations such as the Atlanta Women’s Foundation – Inspire Atlanta, Atlanta Women in Technology, and the National Center for Women & Information Technology.

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Colin Carter

Colin Carter is an Operational Energy Engineer, performing program management and logistics coordination to improve energy efficiency onboard Military Sealift Command (MSC) vessels.

He previously served as a Contractor Quality Assurance Representative (CQAR) for MSC vessel repair efforts, providing oversight and experience to the principal port engineer during the vessel repair process. He's spent 898 days working on four different vessel classes and staffing 12 different repair efforts across four different countries. An early hire for CACI’s CQAR program for MSC, Carter has been instrumental in building the program’s capacity and helping CACI establish itself as a go-to provider for MSC solutions.

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Chamara Farmer

Chamara Farmer is a Software Engineer who has used her talents to do everything from implementing a new mobile asset inventory management system to launching a laboratory workflow management system.

Her contribution to an innovative asset-tracking solution led to a 35% improvement in inventory efficiency, saving her team about 15 work hours per week. In her previous role as a CACI Senior Geospatial Engineer, Farmer simplified geospatial architecture by designing, constructing, and deploying open-source and commercial solutions and providing custom-tailored tools and solutions to automate workflows. Farmer’s expertise in geospatial databases supports diverse sectors, including transportation, disaster response, urban planning, and environmental management.

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Tyrone J. Fenwick

Tyrone J. Fenwick is a Quality Manager whose experience and decades of expertise help CACI employees achieve AS9100D Quality Management System (QMS) certification. This global quality standard sets requirements for processes related to safety, products, and performance in the aviation, space, and defense industries.

Fenwick’s initiative leads to continuous process improvements that enhance conformity to products. He’s developed quicker, easier, and more efficient approaches to solve problems identified during quality assurance activities. He pours his heart into both his work and community, coaching youth basketball and lending a hand at a shelter for the unhoused.

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Ray Freeman

Ray Freeman is a Senior Systems Engineer who leads a team supporting enterprise network enclaves, associated applications, and virtual systems for a military customer. He routinely ensures systems management, integration, and administrative support for more than seven enterprise networks.

For more than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, Freeman honed his networking and telecommunications skills at diverse locations around the world. He brought his technical aptitude for networks and natural leadership abilities to CACI after his military career. His laser focus on technical proficiency and the professional development of his team helped shape the future of IT. Freeman is a respected mentor and phenomenal role model for CACI’s next generation of engineers.

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Robert Funches

Robert Funches is an Expert Network Security Engineer responsible for an operational classified network domain that includes hundreds of endpoints and thousands of users dispersed around the world.

He led a technical team in solutioning and guiding this network through a successful Authorization to Operate and full security accreditation. Previous infrastructures for this decade-old network had never gone through accreditation. Funches guided his team through every step of the year-long accreditation process. Because of this success and many others, he has become a thought leader and go-to resource in the areas of network security best practices, policy, monitoring, and implementation.

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Marcus Getachew

Marcus Getachew is a Software Developer who has worked at CACI for more than 26 years. He is respected for his ability to rally teams together to streamline and enhance systems that are critical to the Intelligence Community and government customers.

With his most recent success, he led a team in overhauling a bloated, monolithic data model without interrupting the customer’s mission. Getachew’s professionalism, humility, and dedication command the respect of all those with whom he works. His leadership style enhances the technical skillsets of his team, empowering them to rise to the high expectations that come with their jobs.

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Nikki Jackson

Nikki Jackson is an IT Project/Operational Excellence Manager with 17 years of experience supporting the Intelligence Community, state, and commercial customers.

In addition to providing leadership and consultation to program management and engineering support areas, Jackson is a subject matter expert in service excellence, systems engineering, software development, customer-tailored lifecycle execution, strategic plans, and executive-level briefing. A community servant at heart, her long list of civic activities includes two decades as a cheerleading coach, a FIRST Robotics Competition judge, mentor, guest speaker, and leader within her local chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

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Rebecca Konnor

Rebecca Konnor is a Senior Epidemiologist who supports the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Safety Network (NHSN) program and plays a significant role in shaping the future of public health and data reporting. Rebecca has led numerous projects under NHSN, including a large-scale analytic product.

Her expertise and insights into healthcare-associated infections are critical in the age of COVID-19. She served as an integral part of the pandemic response team, creating a data collection module in which facilities enrolled to report their daily COVID-19 cases. The information is shared with CDC leadership as well as the White House and used by various healthcare facilities to protect patients and healthcare professionals.

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Mohamed “Lama” Mansaray

Mohamed “Lama” Mansaray is a lead Senior Electrical Engineer who oversees a team of electrical and mechanical engineers and CAD design drafters in a wide range of essential activities, including design, analysis, and facility support for 32 sites around the globe.

In a career spanning more than 18 years, his successes have included the design and implementation of a power system that resulted in a significant increase in security and power safety at Intelligence Community and government installations around the world. Mansaray’s work has earned him a tremendous reputation as a trusted leader who always provides sound recommendations and sage advice on all engineering matters.

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Latosha Marshall

Latosha Marshall is a Program Manager of a multi-disciplined $500 million contract. She leads a team of 300 people supporting an Intelligence Community customer.

With her extensive experience in addressing critical national security challenges, Marshall excels in providing leadership to both technical and non-technical government contractors, collaborating with leaders ranging from interns to senior executives, and ensuring CACI provides mission solutions for some of the government’s toughest national security technical challenges. From strategizing automation solutions with government architects to mentoring to presenting the program vision to leadership staff, Marshall displays the kind of versatile leadership that drives success and innovation.

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Andrew Noonoo

Andrew Noonoo is a Systems Engineer with experience in the technical field, developing solutions and providing support to our Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers.

He’s been instrumental in establishing the company’s Edge platform and is the subject matter expert on Rancher’s Kubernetes, learning the unique intricacies of deploying this technology to the hardware platform in the span of mere weeks. Noonoo exemplified his commitment to his team and enthusiasm to take over new tasks when he came into the office on Easter Sunday to resolve an issue. His dedication and perseverance have kept CACI on schedule and on target to support a critical upcoming demo with multiple DoD and IC partners.

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Roberto Perry

Roberto Perry is a Robotics Engineer supporting a program that is shaping the future of technology integration into threat platforms.

As a Navy veteran and key member of the Technology, Hardware, Replication, and Assembly Team (THREAT), Perry specializes in custom programming and innovative circuit design. He has had great success in modifying and adapting custom programming to increase the functionality of more than 100 unmanned systems and electronic parts. Perry has also designed and produced more than 120 complex threat devices while providing his technical expertise to develop safer response techniques. He is a mentor who is respected by his colleagues and helped to train and teach C++ and Lua programming to his team members.

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Shermane Pressley

Shermane Pressley is an Information Assurance Lead on the Resource Management Online (RMOnline) project, a web-based application used by multiple Army commands to manage their budget and manpower resources.

The Army veteran leads the information assurance group for all RMOnline projects and was instrumental in migrating all RMOnline instances from disparate environments to a consolidated AWS infrastructure. Pressley has also proactively taken on the responsibility of supporting multiple teams with their information assurance processes. He is known for giving back to both his community and colleagues through many avenues, including as Vice President of CACI’s Black Employees and Allies Network (BEAAN) employee resource group.

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Joshua Reda

Joshua Reda is a Naval Architect who develops innovative solutions while performing architecture and marine engineering work for a military customer.

He has made major contributions to ship design and maintenance programs, including for combat, cable-laying, and logistics ships. He served as the Contract Quality Assurance Representative/Assistant Port Engineer for the routine overhauls and mid-term assessments of three Navy ships based in Croatia. This position is typically filled by a more senior engineer, but Reda excelled so much that the port engineer requested him for future availabilities. Reda is a volunteer board member of STEAMPIPElines, a Washington, D.C., area organization that facilitates connections between underrepresented communities and employers.

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Devon Roberson

Devon Roberson is a Senior Knowledge Manager who supports an overseas operation for a military customer.

He has won accolades from the customer and his CACI colleagues for his innovation and ingenuity, both of which were highlighted when Roberson devised a streamlined process for military personnel to track performance evaluations and fitness reports. An Air Force veteran, he built and tested his prototype and eventually delivered an application that allows users to generate a reporting line, attach documents, and assign reviewers who are automatically notified. The success of the app sparked great interest and processed 132 military officer reports during its operation.

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Coleen Y. Robinson

Coleen Y. Robinson is an Information Security Analyst whose success in streamlining the security accreditation process across multiple programs has directly led to more dynamic techniques.

Robinson began her career in the Air Force, where she served five years, achieved the rank of captain, and worked in satellite operations and as an intelligence analyst; she joined CACI in 2021. Robinson’s approach to centrally managing network security tools for the creation and implementation of mitigation plans across all programs has made her team and customers incredibly more efficient. Robinson is a leader among her peers, mentor, role model, and inspiration to all.

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Xavier Teal

Xavier Teal is a Network Engineer and member of the Program Management team who has been instrumental in helping to upgrade a customer’s critically important weapon system. When the system introduced open architecture back in 2016, Teal’s expertise was invaluable.

Teal has grown the size of his team tenfold over the years. They troubleshoot complex network issues that the system experiences, quickly identifying problems and working on even quicker fixes. At the customer’s request, Teal, an Army veteran, developed a training program for all system technicians —approximately 180 people across more than 15 teams. He is highly respected by his colleagues for his leadership style, commitment, and the unified vision he promotes among his team.

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Vanessa Watkins

Vanessa Watkins is a Configuration Management Change Analyst supporting a cutting-edge space-based optical communications sub-system.

A 17-year veteran of the configuration management field, Watkins has worked with design engineers to learn all she can, including how the optical signals flow through the entirety of the sub-system. In turn, she has passed her knowledge onto others on her team and catalogs it so current and future engineers understand and find needed information more quickly. In fact, a structure she established offers an estimated 20% efficiency improvement that can be used in future programs. Watkins is widely considered a subject matter expert and a highly valued and respected member of her team.

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Diversity & Inclusion

 

The BEYA Awards shine an important spotlight the achievements of minorities in STEM and advance STEM education and careers.

Learn more

 

CACI is committed to allyship and inclusion as a fundamental part of our company culture.

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