Native American Heritage Month: Celebrating Indigenous Influencers In Tech

November 23, 2022, 12:00 PM EST

CRN celebrates executives and pioneers from Lockheed, IBM, P3I, TICOM, Aqiwo and Cetan.

Mary Golda Ross

Mary Golda Ross is considered the first known Native American female engineer, according to the National Air and Space Museum.

Born in 1908 in Park Hill, Okla., Ross was a member of the Cherokee Nation. Her great-great-grandfather, John Ross, served as principal chief, according to the museum.

She worked for 10 years as a public school math and science teacher before joining the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in 1942 in Burbank, Calif., as a mathematical research assistant. She was part of Advanced Development Projects – the Skunk Works division – and worked on military aircraft, including the P-38 Lightning, according to the museum.

She also worked on submarine-launched Polaris missiles and Agena launch vehicles for space-bound payloads. Ross died in 2008.

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Wade Tyler Millward

Wade Tyler Millward is an associate editor covering cloud computing and the channel partner programs of Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Salesforce, Citrix and other cloud vendors. He can be reached at wmillward@thechannelcompany.com.