Iowan named national Black Engineer of the Year

CEDAR RAPIDS — Willie Croghan, an engineer at BAE Systems in Cedar Rapids, has been named the 2023 national Black Engineer of the Year

Croghan, 54, of Cedar Rapids, was awarded the General Johnnie Wilson Legacy award earlier this month in recognition for his work at BAE Systems, the international defense, aerospace and security company that just opened a $100 million facility near The Eastern Iowa Airport.

The award was presented at a ceremony in Washington, D. C., by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

It was “awesome” to be recognized, Croghan said, considering the “incredible number of really smart, talented engineers.”

In nominating Croghan for the award, BAE’s Ryan Sanger cited Croghan’s “technical effort and team mentoring,” saying he was a “key contributor … to the development and fielding” of the company’s M-Code GPS product.

Farm chores

Growing up near the small city of Manning in west-central Iowa, Croghan said his parents taught him the “sky’s the limit. You establish and will determine for yourself what you will achieve and accomplish.”

“The person who is going to hold you back the most is yourself. That’s something I preach all the time,” Croghan said.

Croghan grew up on a dairy farm, where he had his share of chores taking care of the farm’s pigs and cattle. He recalls waking up at 4 a.m. to tend to the animals, the going to school and coming home for more chores and homework, before turning in around 10 p.m.

As a Black child adopted into a white family with 13 kids, Croghan said his parents were “very encouraging.” Just because he looked different than others didn’t mean he was different than anyone else, they told him.

“God was looking down on me,” he said.

Croghan graduated from Mount Mercy University, where he studied math, computer science and earned a teaching endorsement.

The award

This year’s Black Engineer of the Year recognition program attracted nominations from companies in the private, nonprofit and higher education sector.

The winners were selected by a peer review selection committee that included a diverse group of scientific and technical leaders and top supporters of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and of historically Black colleges.

The national award is named for Johnnie Wilson, a Black four-star general, now retired, who was in charge of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps from 1996 to 1999.

Military service

After college, Croghan joined the Army Reserves, where he worked full-time for 21 years and served in the Iraqi conflict — experience BAE cited in nominating Croghan for the engineering award.

He retired as a sergeant major in the 649th Regional Support Group after his wife, Diana, was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer in 2009.

At the time, the couple had two young daughters. Diana had five surgeries before the cancer went into remission and has been cancer-free since.

Croghan said his military service “helped drive who I wanted to become.” When he left military service, he said, he “wanted to make a difference.”

“I’m fortunate the company I work for is absolutely soldier-first,” he said. “They live and breathe that, and it makes it very easy for us here at work to always do the right thing.”

Croghan joined BAE Systems after it bought Collins Aerospace's military Global Positioning System business in 2020.

As a senior principal systems engineer, Croghan works with members of the military around the world about ways to improve BAE’s GPS equipment. The equipment, he said, “gives our war fighters an edge on the battlefield.”

BAE’s Sanger added that military-level GPS is essential to the U.S. Department of Defense because “intentional and unintentional electromagnetic interference from spoofing and jamming can sabotage military missions.”

Outside of work

In his spare time, Croghan coaches Eastern Iowa Barracudas fastpitch softball. He also offers academic help to the kids he coaches, especially in math, science and engineering, saying he hopes to encourage “young future stars.”

Two of those stars are his adult daughters — Samantha, 26, and Megan, 24. Samantha is a software engineer at Collins Aerospace and Megan works in cancer research at the University of Iowa.

“They’re my greatest joy,” Croghan said. “They’re far better than what I probably deserve.”

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