CNN, 11/12/2011 (Lisa Chambers, Wayne Hicks, Wesley Williams)

Wesley Williams

Building More Minority Engineers, As Early as Elementary School. As a young teen, Wesley Williams believed his only career option was to work at a local warehouse in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

“I wasn’t planning on going to college, I wasn’t planning on graduating high school, I was planning on doing nothing with my life,” he said.

Now, nearly 10 years later, he is a college graduate and an IT administrator and developer.

“I would be either dead or in jail," he said. "Those would have been my options had it not been for BDPA.”

BDPA, formerly known as the Black Data Processing Associates, is a non-profit organization founded to increase the number of minorities in information technology related industries.

In high school, Williams had no interest in academics and spent most of his time hanging out with the wrong crowd. His mother pushed him to join the local BDPA chapter. There, he discovered a love for technology.

Read the rest of the CNN.com article here.

The Flip Board, 1/22/2010 (Paul Moore)

Today, Lightyear Wireless announced the promotion of Paul Moore to Regional Manager according to their marketing and compensation plan. He will now experience greater residuals and override payouts for customer acquisition. “Congratulations on Regional Manager!” said Ron Mattingly, Vice President of Sales. Paul is also a member of many professional organizations which include the BDPA, Mid-South Association of Contingency Planners and the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.

Read the full announcement here.

Business Compute-N-Show, 9/8/2008 (Nancy Ford, April Jackson)

Computer Troubleshooting and Fixes Made Easy. April Jackson, Desktop Support Specialist and BDPA Memphis member, is interviewed on the Business Compute-N-Show by host Nancy Ford.

View the full televised interview here.

Memphis Business Journal, 1/24/2005 (Joseph Taylor, Todd Green)

Data Pros Coach High Schoolers to National Victory. Anyone who voluntarily, without pay, spends five hours inside a classroom with 50-some teenagers each Saturday for six months -- including those sweet springtime Saturdays in late April and May -- deserves a payoff. Joseph Taylor and Todd Green got theirs last August.

Read the full media story here.

University of Memphis News Room, 7/28/2004 (BDPA Memphis)

National Champion BDPA High School Computer Team Sets Sights on Another Win with Help from the University of Memphis. The University of Memphis' FedEx Institute of Technology (FIT) and two of its associated organizations - the Institute for Intelligent Systems and the Advanced Learning Center - have teamed up this year to host the high school computer camp of the Memphis chapter of the Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA)...

Read the full media story here.

Institute for Intelligent Systems, 2/23/2004 (BDPA Memphis)

FedEx Institute of Technology and IIS Host Memphis Black Data Processing Association's (BDPA) High School Computer Camp (HSCC). Recently, members of the BDPA along with Memphis area high school students visited IIS at the FedEx institute and were given a taste of the research the IIS performs on a daily basis. From this brief visit, the potential for learning was visibly great. The goal to expose these students to high-end technology and facilitate non-technical training is easily within our grasp. The camp will run from the beginning of February and will continue until late August.

Read the media story here.

BDPA Monthly Newsletter, 8/1/2002 (Milt Haynes, Wayne Hicks, Randy Nichols)

Newsletter: National BDPA (Aug 2002)

View more documents from Wayne Hicks