Blazing Flame
▸ One of Frances Dupris’ fondest childhood memories is having chicken pox. No, it wasn’t because the illness was fun. Rather, what she remembers with such nostalgia is that having chicken pox meant that she got to spend an extended period of time with her grandmother, Louise Eagle Tail Quick Bear, and great-grandmother, Rebecca Quick Bear, who took care of her while she was sick.
“When I had chicken pox it was great because we would all have breakfast together and pray together, and I got to listen to my great-grandmother, who spoke only Lakota,” says Dupris, winner of this year’s Blazing Flame Award. “It was such a blessing to have that time.”
By no means was Dupris’ bout with chicken pox the only time her grandmother took care of her. As a newborn, Dupris came down with pneumonia and was in an incubator clinging to life. The sound of her grandmother’s voice reaching her in the incubator remains an indelible first memory. But plenty more memories followed — her grandmother took an active role in her childhood because her parents were young and not entirely equipped to raise Dupris and her sister.
It was a challenging upbringing, one that included periods of homelessness and poverty, but the lessons her grandmother provided were profound. “Ever since I can remember, when she had a home it was open to anybody who needed a place to stay,” says Dupris. “It could be uncles, aunts, and kids, and even people who were not blood-related. She was loving and caring for anybody and everybody.”
Dupris has taken those lessons of service and compassion with her throughout her life and career. Today she is a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, a senior non-commissioned officer providing specialized intelligence to support the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. In her nearly 20 years in the military, Dupris has balanced her work and studies, earning both a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s in organizational leadership.
Though her school, job, and family responsibilities — her husband is from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe — have always been significant, Dupris’ commitment to sharing, teaching, and celebrating her Lakota and Arapaho heritage has remained a priority. The many examples of her efforts include leading a yearlong series of cultural events through the Air Force’s American Indian and Alaska Native Employee Resource Group, including an event with Billy Mills, the Oglala Sioux athlete who won a gold medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games in a legendary upset.
Dupris does exactly what her grandmother taught her: she gives back and provides encouragement to those who need it.
In 2019 Dupris coordinated the publication of profiles of Native Americans who achieved the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force. Those stories were distributed to thousands of military and federal employees in a newsletter about the activities of the American Indian and Alaska Native Employee Resource Group. At Peterson Air Force Base, Dupris organized a story hour where she read accounts from S.D. Nelson, a Lakota author and illustrator. For these and other activities, Dupris was awarded the 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Air Force 93rd Intelligence Squadron and 543rd Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Group. “I do it not because I want recognition but because there is such a small percentage of Natives in the military, I felt it my duty to do it,” she says. “I want to showcase our culture.”
Dupris and her husband also devote countless hours to mentoring and helping Native American and Alaska Native students through the Colorado Springs School District’s Office of Indian Education. Through both this work and her longtime membership in AISES, Dupris helps students navigate school and scholarship applications and tries to foster networking and professional development opportunities.
In other words, Dupris does exactly what her grandmother taught her: she gives back and provides encouragement to those who need it. It’s a message she wants all students to hear, no matter how trying their circumstances may be. “My message is, don’t give up. As humans we go through adversity in life, and as Natives we have more barriers in life than most,” she says. “Know that your ancestors are walking with you. Overcoming adversity is what makes you stronger and more experienced to share with those going through hard times. We are still fighting to have a voice in this world, for our voice to be heard, and for change to happen. You can be that change.”
Indigenous Excellence
▸ When Sandra Begay was an 11-year-old attending boarding school, she knew she wanted a career in engineering. It wasn’t that she was taking an engineering course in elementary school, but rather it was when she realized there was a problem that could be solved.
“We had to get up early in the winter and march to the dining hall, which was a football-field length away through the cold,” recalls Begay, this year’s winner of the Indigenous Excellence Award. “Maybe it was because of a trip to Disneyland, but in the back of my mind I knew there was a better way. What if I could get into a tram and get to the dining hall nice and warm?”
To be clear, a boarding school monorail was never actually constructed. But the idea that she could use science and technology skills to figure out the answer to a complicated problem became firmly embedded in Begay’s mind. Today, she is a research and development engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., a place Begay has worked on and off for 27 years in a variety of capacities. But her journey from precocious young student to being featured in a book about pioneering women engineers and serving on the University of New Mexico Board of Regents has not been as quick and easy as an imaginary tram ride to the cafeteria.
The very reason she was at a boarding school near Gallup, N.M., was that Begay’s mother (Navajo matriarch) was the first member of her family to pursue a college degree — enough of a challenge that she needed to focus her attention on her studies full time. While it meant sacrifices for her family, the example her mother provided and the direct advice her mom gave about the struggles involved made an impression when it was time for Begay to consider higher education. “She said it’s going to be a hard path and college is challenging, but you have to do it,” says Begay, a member of the Navajo Nation. “My dad, who was a tribal leader, always wanted me to think big and figure out how to use my degree to help other people, especially Navajos.”
Begay also got a practical lesson from her mom, who worked as a public health nurse after finishing school, about the most financially efficient way to get a college degree. Like her mom, Begay went to a University of New Mexico community college campus before earning her BS in civil engineering at the main campus in Albuquerque.
Begay created the Indian Energy Program at Sandia, which includes an internship program. Through that program, Begay had the opportunity to mentor 42 American Indian and Alaska Native college students.
Even before she graduated, Begay attended an AISES National Conference and met an employee from Sandia, who told her what a great place the lab is to build a career, especially for Native employees. “I knew that is where I wanted to work,” she says. “But I also knew that a bachelor’s degree was not enough.”
With the vision of eventually securing a position at Sandia, Begay earned an MS in structural engineering from Stanford University — a school she chose for its vibrant American Indian community. (She was named to the school’s Alumni Hall of Fame in 2000.) Before landing a position at Sandia, Begay worked as a facilities structural engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory and as a plant civil engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
With the exception of a two-year stint as executive director of AISES, Begay has worked at Sandia since 1992. Her positions have varied from project manager to assisting senior executives with business development and corporate planning and, most recently, leading a technical assistance team supporting the development of renewable energy on tribal land. In 2009 she was recognized with the Ely S. Parker Award, the highest AISES honor.
Begay’s first name, Sandra, literally means “helper,” and though her positions and responsibilities have changed over the course of her career, that fundamental mission of helping others has remained constant. Begay created the Indian Energy Program at Sandia, which includes an internship program. Through that program, Begay had the opportunity to mentor 42 American Indian and Alaska Native college students, over half of whom are women. One of her former interns, JoDonna John, is the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority’s renewable energy engineer, overseeing the completion of the secondlargest solar installation on tribal lands.
In many ways, the same attitude and perspective that Begay has shown as an engineer have guided her in everything else she has done, including encouraging young Indigenous students. “It’s not about pondering how challenging or hard a situation is,” she says. “It’s figuring out what I can do about it. How can I help?”
Executive Excellence
▸ When Brendan Kinkade was a young kid growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, he wanted to know how things work — a concept he now refers to as “practical physics.” At the time, though, the pursuit of practical physics translated into completely taking apart and then reassembling motorbike engines on his back patio. “Every screw and washer had a place, and if you deconstruct things, you have to know how they go back into place,” says Kinkade. “It taught me to be systematic and process-oriented. And to understand that there are many pieces that make up the whole.”
For Kinkade, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and this year’s Executive Excellence Award winner, that early interest in engineering came naturally. Kinkade’s father was an aerospace designer and his mother was a university radiation biology professor and dean who went on to become CIO at the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Kinkade studied mechanical engineering and aviation at the University of Louisiana Monroe, and his path to his current role as vice president, strategic partners, for IBM’s cloud and cognitive software business has had a few curves. In fact, before taking on a series of executive-level positions at major technology companies, Kinkade spent years in the media and entertainment world in Los Angeles.
He had a family connection in that industry: the late actress Rue McClanahan, who won an Emmy playing Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, was Kinkade’s aunt. But what really drew Kinkade to the entertainment business was the same “how to do it” impulse that led him to take apart motorbikes. “I took an interest in directing and how to produce and edit, and that exposed me to emerging digital technologies,” he says. His work eventually caught the attention of an early-stage data storage startup, which was pioneering the shift from tape to disk-based backup.
Kinkade served as the company’s vice president of marketing for six years, then later joined the cloud computing company VMware before eventually joining IBM in 2016. “I was concerned the corporate world would be too stiff,” he says. “But I found that, to the contrary, there’s a lot of creativity, good thinking, and logical processes as well as room for business instincts and understanding the market and where it may go.”
“My role as a leader is to establish a culture, and the culture on my team is one of inclusion and strong collaboration.”
In fact, Kinkade’s current position leading a team of 24 in the development of partnerships for IBM’s cloud and cognitive software business demands both the ability to foster strong personal relationships and a deep understanding of technology. Relationships are obviously important as Kinkade and his team work with companies like Dell, Intel, and VMware to develop mutually beneficial partnerships that complement what the IBM public and hybrid cloud platforms can already deliver.
That same emphasis on strong relationships also guides Kinkade’s approach to executive leadership. “My role as a leader is to establish a culture, and the culture on my team is one of inclusion and strong collaboration,” he says. “I think that starts with me. Anyone can call me at any time. I’m responsive, and I have open and frank communications about our objectives and expectations. I think people respect you when you’re open, clear, and honest.”
Kinkade’s approach to leadership has proven effective. Within IBM, his organization ranks at the top in employee engagement and earns “best in class” marks in 13 of 17 categories. Kinkade himself received 100 percent favorable engagement scores from his direct reports. Good leadership also happens to translate into strong financial results. Partnerships managed by Kinkade’s group brought in over $1 billion in revenue for IBM in 2019, with IBM’s public cloud partnerships increasing 93 percent from 2018.
A longtime member of AISES and a Sequoyah Fellow, Kinkade prioritizes fostering opportunities for Native students interested in technology careers. He serves on IBM’s Executive Native American Diversity and Inclusion Council, and his own team is made up of over 40 percent women and minorities. Kinkade is also actively involved with Native American education through the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Title IV Indian Education Program, and his two daughters have been recognized for their many academic achievements by both the Choctaw Nation and the LAUSD Indian Education Program.
Kinkade is enthusiastic about encouraging Native students to pursue careers in technology because he knows firsthand what a dynamic and exciting industry it is — one that always rewards looking to the future. “It’s important to stay engaged in the present,” he says. “But always be on the lookout, particularly in technology, because the landscape changes so fast. If you can avoid being myopic and keep your eyes on the horizon, there can be a lot of interesting opportunities.”
