Barnett is a software engineer in Northrop Grumman's Information Systems unit, but there’s more to his work than just his job. Barnett also is the professional development chair of the Northrop Grumman African American Task Group employee resource group. And in the Bellevue, Nebraska, community, he’s a mentor to local K-12 students, with the CyberPatriot and VEX Robotics student science competitions.

Barnett received his Special Recognition award at the Black Engineer of the Year Award Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Global Competitiveness Conference last month in Washington.

By day, he’s a software engineer, working on the design and development of projects for the Department of Defense. His current project is a web-based collaborative tool for military sites around the world. Planners input data into the application, which can pull data together from many sources and produce a briefing for senior leadership. It also has a visual capability that can take information from multiple sources and display the data on a Google Earth-type image.

The company’s African American Task Group is one of several employee resource groups at Northrup Grumman.

“Our goal is to create a diverse and inclusive work environment to help attract, retain and develop African Americans,” he says. “I help make our members aware of the new professional development tools and resources that are available.

“I also work to foster mentor relationships within our membership and also coordinate activities to improve members’ leadership and create career advancement opportunities for them.”

In Bellevue, a suburb of Omaha, Barnett is a volunteer at a number of schools.

“I’m involved in several of the high schools and middle schools and even elementary schools, dealing with the robotics programs,” he says.

At one of the high schools he helped start a technology club. “Right now we’re working on three major projects, a surveillance system, a weather station and an irrigation system.”

Developing systems based on Raspberry Pi cards – inexpensive credit-card size computers designed for small projects – Barnett’s students are putting technology to work to benefit their school. The surveillance system is the students’ response to the disappearance of some of the school’s iPads.

The irrigation system will provide water to the school’s garden. “Now, they have someone who will go out and water the garden,” Barnett says. “We want to automate it, find a way to water the garden from our phone or maybe a computer.”

The weather station will be connected to the irrigation system. “Our big plan, once we get the weather station up, is to have sensors from the weather station determine when the garden needs to be watered,” he says.

“One of the kids came up with the idea. The kids come in with ideas, and we try to help toward completing them.”

Barnett was introduced to Northrup Grumman at an A&T career fair. An online application and a phone interview resulted in the company flying him out for a visit.

“That’s how I ended up in Bellevue, Nebraska. They presented me with the best offer, so I ran with that.”

His undergraduate and graduate work at A&T prepared him well for working in a corporate environment. One of his best experiences was working with Dr. Ken Williams of the Department of Computer Science to write a successful proposal to the National Reconnaissance Office. Barnett also worked on a project with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.

“That gave me a lot of good experience about what to expect in a professional work environment.”

Barnett is originally from Raleigh, and he recognizes that there’s one aspect of his professional life that A&T couldn’t prepare him for: winter in Nebraska.

“I thought I knew what winter was, but I had no idea."

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