Dr. Carl B. Mack | Executive Director
Carl Bernard Mack (cmack@nsbe.org) was born in Jackson, Miss. He is a graduate and Distinguished Engineering Fellow of Mississippi State University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. On May 8, 2010, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Clarkson University.
On March 1, 2005, Mack was named as the fourth executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), one of the nation’s largest student-governed organizations.
His presence at NSBE was immediately felt. In each of his first five years, the organization set records for membership, reaching 35,493 members in 2010, up from its previous high of 12,842 before his arrival. He has also been instrumental in increasing NSBE’s financial resources to record highs: helping expand the organization’s cash reserves from $3.5 million to $9.0 million; securing a largest-ever grant of $1 million from a NSBE sponsor; helping build NSBE’s top-level sponsorship to record levels; bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars to strengthen NSBE’s IT infrastructure; pushing attendance at NSBE’s Annual Convention to nearly 10,000 attendees and working with NSBE’s National Executive Board to pay off the mortgage on NSBE’s new World Headquarters building, among other highlights.
His extraordinary leadership has led to an increase in visibility for the organization, with appearances on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight and ABC’s Good Morning America, and recognition in Ebony magazine as one of the Top 150 Black Leaders in America. In July 2009, Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations, presented Mack with the National Naval Officers Association’s top honor for work in the field of diversity: the Capt. Charles L. Tompkins Award.
To help fill the pipeline to engineering careers with greater numbers of minorities, in the Summer of 2007, Mack founded NSBE’s Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) Academy. To date, he has secured approximately $3 million in funding for the program, which utilizes NSBE’s collegiate engineering members to expose African American children as early as third grade to the world of engineering. Currently, SEEK exists in Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio, with plans to expand to Oakland, California and Chicago, Illinois.
Before joining NSBE, Mack worked as an engineer with METRO – King County in Seattle, Wash., and coordinated the county’s award-winning Minority Engineering Internship Program. He also served as president of the Seattle King County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During his tenure, the branch won the 2004 Class 1-A Thalheimer Award as the top branch in the country. Because of his significant contributions in the arena of civil rights, Carl was listed as one of the 25 Most Influential people in the greater Seattle area. Upon his announcement to leave the greater Seattle area, both the City of Seattle and the King County government named February 12, 2005, Carl B. Mack Day.
Mack is a member of the Minority Advisory Board of the Mississippi State University College of Engineering and is a member of the Board of Directors of SAE Foundation (Society of Automotive Engineers).
Mack resides in Fort Washington, Md., with his sons, Joshua and Jonathan, and his wife, Jamiyo, a chemical engineer whom he met at NSBE’s 2000 Annual National Convention. He also has a daughter, LaShaundra Johnson, who resides in Jackson, MS.