Photo by Liz Goettee Engineers Flowers and Gannaway

Both men would take a step back, analyze the situation then hammer out a solution. For Gannaway and Flowers, who hadn’t met until recently, that knack for problem-solving became so contagious that it shaped their careers.

Flowers’ and Gannaway’s personal standards for excellence earned them recognition as two of the nation’s Modern Day Technology Leaders at the 22nd national Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference in Baltimore Feb. 15. The award is given to leaders who have helped shape the future of engineering, science and technology.

The conference, which ran Feb. 13-17, has consistently attracted the nation’s top, most creative and best-educated engineers. Conference organizers said about 7,000 engineers, awardees from several industry and government organizations, business leaders, and recruiters attended the event at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Three other NAVAIR engineers received the Modern Day Technology Leaders award: Israel I. Jordan, who works on the DDG 51 AEGIS Class Radio Communication System and an automated digital network system at Webster Field Annex; Travis I. Lynch, also at Webster Field, a multi-mission data link system electronics engineer, and Loretta Kestler, the H-3 Fleet Support team lead at Cherry Point, N.C.

Gannaway and Flowers have a few more things in common. Both grew up in small North Carolina towns. They graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. They became Integrated Product Team Leads for naval aircraft programs. And, Gannaway and Flowers said, they were ready to meet each other at the awards event.

Gannaway works here for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft program office (PMA-290). She’s the IPT lead for the Mission Avionics Systems for the EPX Aircraft Program. The aircraft are deployed for intelligence gathering missions and to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance at sea.

She said she loves to mentor young engineers, and outside of NAVAIR, she’s worked for more than 15 years directing choirs, composing music and as a pianist. Lately, she’s been into scrapbooking. Gannaway recently participated in a project where she and other women scrapbooked to help raise money to buy phone cards for troops in Iraq.

For Gannaway, the engineering light bulb went off in more ways than one when her father helped her build an electrical lamp when she was a fifth grader in Reidsville, N.C.

Gannaway had been watching him fix some wiring around the house and she told him that she wanted to build a lamp. Everything worked as planned, she said. And the father-daughter do-it-yourself project started a ‘‘fascination for all things electrical.”

Watching her dad may have sparked the interest, Gannaway, said. But there’s more to her story.

‘‘NAVAIR has been good to me,” said Gannaway, who said she’s worked at Pax for 22 years and taken advantage of several educational and training opportunities. ‘‘There are a host of programs that NAVAIR and the Navy offer to help those who are interested to grow themselves professionally,” she said.

Today, Gannaway said, ‘‘my chief goal is to be able to provide support to the men and women who put their lives on the line to support this nation.” Her speech becomes faster and her excitement was obvious when she said, ‘‘The job is fascinating.” Gannaway said that she’s directly supported the troops with engineering needs, and has helped develop engineering solutions that will support Sailors and pilots for many decades.

Flowers also is helping to make lasting impressions at Pax.

He works for NAVAIR as the IPT Lead for the E-2D cockpit upgrade program in the E2⁄C2 program management office (PMA-231). The E-2Ds also are deployed on surveillance missions, and he describes them as the ‘‘eyes and ears of the battlefield.” Flowers has been at Pax for about eight years.

‘‘I enjoy working for the government. I enjoy the people that I work with. Right now, I’m really enjoying the (E-2D) program, with so many things going on,” he said, ‘‘I feel like I can grow ... This award inspires me to keep pressing for more. ”

In between balancing work and family life, Flowers said he still finds time for basketball. He plays in the drill hall with two teams, the Lunchtime Crew and The Hoopers.

Flowers said he might have been hooked with the engineering bug when he was about 14. It was a summer day when his father took him along to repair a house. Half the ceiling was rotted out. ‘‘Initially, he didn’t know what the problem was,” Flowers said.

He was impressed as he watched his dad stand there, stare at the damage and finally decide on a plan of action. His dad took out his hacksaw and started a miniature demolition. When he exposed the pipe, he squeezed some dishwashing liquid against its exterior.

‘‘It started to bubble in certain areas and he told me, ‘that’s where the leak was.’” His dad went and got supplies, measured everything and replaced the pipe and ceiling tiles and they went back home together.

Flowers said he wanted to think like his father, and began to strategize and tackle problems like his dad. ‘‘It was always understood that my father loved me and was proud,” Flowers said. That feeling of love and pride was mutual, Flowers said. And, he added, he’s happy his dad got to see him become an engineer before he passed. ‘‘My father always was my inspiration.”