By DANIELLE ULMAN
Daily Record Business Writer
February 13, 2008 6:38 PM

BALTIMORE, MD (February 15, 2008) – Organizers of a conference featuring minorities in science and technology careers will be doing some matchmaking this Valentine’s Day, but most matches will be sealed with a handshake, not a kiss.

Attendees of the 22nd Annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference, the umbrella name for a group of conferences taking place Thursday through Saturday at the Baltimore Convention Center , will have the opportunity to network and mingle with black leaders in engineering, science, math and technology-based fields.

The three-day event is expected to draw about 7,000 people for networking, seminars, career coaching, galas and a career fair, said Miller Roberts, a communications specialist with Career Communications Group Inc., the Baltimore company behind the conference and publisher of U.S. Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine.

“We’re bringing these people together to celebrate their achievements and look forward to their next achievements,” Roberts said.

The conference was created to educate minorities on the importance of technology and the potential for career opportunities in the field.

This year’s conference will feature the Black CEO Summit, which starts Thursday, and the 10th Annual Black Family Technology Awareness Summit on Saturday. The summit is a culmination of a week-long national campaign to educate black families about the benefits of technology.

“We want parents to bring their children to see role models from this field,” Roberts said. “To see some of the great ways they can be part of this field and participate in technology.”

LaRian Finney, president and CEO of Visionary Marketing Group in Baltimore, said he and Tyrone Taborn, president and CEO of Career Communications Group, added a business summit to the conference in 2005, expanding the event to minority businesses.

“Tyrone and I belong to the President’s Round Table, and we thought it was a good synergy,” Finney said. “Instead of duplicating, we thought the footprint at his conference made sense.”

Finney has continued to be involved in the conference because, he said, “It’s really a place where folks are celebrated.”

Business summit events include a keynote address by former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat from Tennessee , who is now vice chairman at Merrill Lynch, and a legislative session for business owners.

The Minority Business Round Table is taking part in the conference this year for the second time, said Roger Campos, CEO of the nonprofit organization. The group will be holding the legislative session on Friday.

“We thought it was a great event and we’re reaching out to build partnerships with all minority groups,”
Campos said. “This year we hope that we will have students that attend the Black Engineer of the Year Awards who are interested in politics and policy.”

Roberts said he hopes high school students will come learn about colleges that offer technology-based programs and college students will take advantage of the career fair.

“It truly is about networking and getting information,” he said.

The success of the conference can be measured by the number of people who return each year, Finney said.

“We have great retention on the event,” Finney said. “We’ve done case studies where people who attended eight years ago or 22 years ago are now moving up the food chain in their companies or have started their own businesses and now contribute a great deal.”

Danielle Ulman
Finance & Energy Reporter
The Daily Record
11 E. Saratoga St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
Work: 443-524-8158
Cell: 646-483-6447
danielle.ulman@mddailyrecord.com

*Original News Article link: http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=4334&type=UTTM

About the Minority Business RoundTable:

The Minority Business RoundTable is the only national non-profit organization for CEOs of the nation's leading African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Native-American and other minority-owned businesses. Its members analyze and help formulate effective public policies that impact minority-owned business.  MBRT charter member firms earned gross sales from $53 million to more than $5 billion per company and employs between 80 and 4,000 people. 
 
The Minority Business RoundTable is proud to have Aerotek, Inc., one of the nation's leading provider of personnel services, the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of the country's leading corporations, the Kauffman Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Small Business Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Labor and other federal agencies as strategic partners.  For more information on the Minority Business RoundTable, please visit www.mbrt.net.
 
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Contact: Roger A Campos
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rogercampos@mbrt.net