William H. Kindred receives an award for Advancing Inclusion + Global Perspectives from Vice President for Research Maria Zuber.
Our final award for Advancing Inclusion and Global Perspectives goes to the former Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Lincoln Laboratory, now the Business Transformation Manager. His name is William H. Kindred and when he joined Lincoln Laboratory a decade ago no formalized diversity and inclusion program existed. Over the last ten years, Bill has initiated and supported 10 employee resource groups including those devoted to OUT professionals, veterans, women, African Americans, Hispanic and Latino employees, and employees with disabilities.
On both the local and national level, Bill has forged strong relationships with minority professional associations such as the Society of Hispanic Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers. And he has improved recruiting efforts at diverse institutions of higher learning, including historically black colleges and universities—often attending recruiting conferences himself to improve Lincoln Laboratory’s access to diverse candidates. Bill Kindred, his colleagues say, is a natural and tireless connector of people—often people he knows will work together to great effect.
Bill examined practices, policies, and systems for unintended or historic biases and sensitively monitored compliance. He created his own bold outreach efforts and mentoring programs—and supported those created by others. Bill Kindred has, in fact, developed one of the best programs in the federally funded research and development community.
“Over the past few years, Lincoln Laboratory employees have noticed significant progress in our culture of inclusiveness,” one of his colleagues wrote, “and that is largely a result of the efforts of Bill Kindred.”