Black Engineers of the Year

In 1999, HP submitted its first employees for consideration at the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference. The company had been an active supporter of the conference for years, but this was the first time it entered awards contention, so it went in at peace with leaving empty-handed. Instead, two employees received national awards at the 7,000-person conference: Bess Stephens, manager of HP’s K-12 Education Program, was honored for Corporate Promotion of Education, while Kevin Hinkston, an IT engineer, won for Outstanding Technical Contribution.