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Name |
Category |
Date Graduated |
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Darlene Anderson |
Sports |
1957 |
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 Darlene
Anderson is the first Black female "Roller Derby" athlete. Although
here fete was over-shadowed by Jackie Robinson's emergence as major
league baseball's first Black player at the same time, nonetheless
she made history in the late 1950's with this distinction.
Ironically both Darlene and Jackie hailed from Pasadena. Ms.
Anderson, in an interview was called the chosen one: "I don't think
I was the chosen one, just as other blacks were removing bricks, one
by one, as Jackie Robinson and even George Copeland, who was Derby's
first black male skater, I too, was just another person, I believe,
given talent, God Given Talent, to make some type of a history mark
on America. The lack of Media coverage and Television coverage in
the late 50's was not, what it is today, so perhaps being the first
female black skater was to groom me for my life after roller derby.
But I do know, the world had their eyes on me, I was Black, and the
only Black female on the banked oval. Not because I was black, but
because I was/am Darlene, did I want to be the best on that banked
track, I skated hard to obtain the respect of every female skater,
as I respected them, that skated in Roller Derby. A professional
respects another professional, and sees no color. The Chosen One,
no, just a place God had me working at that time of my life. |
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Ko Nishimura |
Business |
1956 |
 Dr.
Koichi (Ko) Nishimura, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief
Executive Officer of Solectron Corporation, Ko Nishimura joined
Solectron in 1988 as chief operating officer and became president in
1990. In 1992, he was appointed chief executive officer and was
subsequently elected chairman of the board in 1996. During his
tenure, Nishimura has grown Solectron from a regional entity into
the world’s largest and most profitable electronics manufacturing
services (EMS) company. Under his watch, Solectron received the
prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award twice - in 1997
and 1991 - Dr. Nishimura serves on the boards of Merix Corporation,
the Center for Quality Management and the Santa Fe Institute. He
also serves on the Baan Company supervisory board, the advisory
board of Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, the
board of the Santa Clara Valley Manufacturing Group and is vice
president of the Malcolm Baldrige Foundation. He is a former board
member of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. He
holds a doctorate in material science and engineering from Stanford
University, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in electrical
engineering from San Jose State University. He is a senior member of
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the
Society of Manufacturing Engineers. |
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