 Black History Month celebrates the history, activities, and achievements of African Americans in the United States. George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama, to name a few African Americans who made a difference by being the first in their field and paving the way for others to follow. The NRC Advisory Committee for African Americans is a committee of men and women working in different offices and performing various job duties supporting the NRC and serving the public. As a committee, we are about outreach, mentoring, and providing our constituents with information and various activities to keep everyone involved and informed. Today, NRC employees continue to inspire diversity of students of all races and ethnic backgrounds to pursue their dreams and education, and we try to encourage them by working hard, achieving success, and serving as role models. This NRC video highlights the diverse roles and contributions of some of our African American staff at the agency today. As a desk officer in the Office of International Programs, I'm responsible for preparing the commissioners that I travel with for their international travel, and this can include giving them talking points, preparing them for speeches, and setting their itinerary for international travel. I also do the same for senior executive service managers at the NRC. As a Reactor Safety Systems Engineer, we review changes to licenses from licensees of reactors for accuracy and safety. As the Deputy CFO for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I manage the agency's budget, which is currently over a billion dollars. I provide financial guidance to senior officials and programmatic managers in order to make decisions about their day-to-day operations. I ensure that the agency receive a clean opinion on its financial statements and internal controls. And I also ensure that the employees, internal within NRC, and our vendors, external, receive proper and timely payments. Here at the NRC, I work in the WorkLive for Benefits Branch, and I basically process any action for benefits for the employees. So I work closely with the Human Resources Benefits Officer and the Specialist, and we process things like health insurance requests, we process military deposits, and just anything that has to do with benefits for the NRC staff. I play a role as far as helping others come up with their career, and currently now at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I'm mentoring about three staff. I challenge them to say, you know, if you're not doing this, why not? What can we do to make, you know, your experience work-wise or otherwise better? Well here at the NRC, I've had the opportunity to have several mentors. When I first came on board, I had an amazing supervisor who unofficially mentored me, but definitely gave me some incredible guidance in my career path. It doesn't matter where you start in your entry level position. If you do a good job, wherever you start, I think it builds upon the next level that you go to. Wherever you do, do the best that you can do, and then it will get you to the next level. Plenty of inspirations along the way, including a long list of teachers, but one teacher in particular was my physics teacher in high school, Dr. Doss. We had something called Doss Effects, and she really inspired me to get into science and to really look towards my potential as an engineer in my senior year in high school. I had wonderful teachers in my life that helped to motivate me, my family members. I had people in my church that encouraged me to move forward, stay diverse, explore different areas, never put all your eggs in one basket, never just look in one area, but just see what potential lies out there, because the sky's the limit, it's one of my teachers used to always say. A set aside time to reflect and honor those that paved the way for African Americans in this country, I think it's necessary, I think that it should be respected by all folks. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slaves. I rise, I rise, I rise.