As an African American man, Byron Clayton is somewhat of an anomaly in the technology world.
It may seem a bold statement, but it’s a truthful one: White males continue to dominate the fast-paced industry. As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, leading technology companies released data last year showing they vastly underemploy African Americans, Hispanics and women.
Statistics offered by some of the world’s largest Silicon Valley tech firms—think Apple, Google, HP, Microsoft and Twitter—indicate that 72% of their global workforce is male, and 64% of their U.S. workforce is white. The nonwhite workforce breaks down like this: 21% Asian, 6% Hispanic and 3% black. The remaining 6% are classified as “other.”
How to turn that around?
Clayton, who was hired in January as president and CEO of Research Park Corp., looks to his own life. Early on, two men taught him at an early age the duality of fixing with his hands and thinking with his mind.
“I’m the poster child for getting involved early with STEM thinking,” Clayton says of the education focus on science, technology, engineering and math. “When I was in grade school, I was always pushed to take mathematics, chemistry and physics. My father didn’t have a college degree, but he always taught me to fix things. And I had an uncle who had his Ph.D. in engineering. By the time I got to high school, I excelled in math, because I focused on it and I knew how to apply it. And I enjoyed it.”
It’s difficult to discern where Baton Rouge stands in terms of recruiting minorities. About 100 tech companies have a presence in the greater Baton Rouge area, according to the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. But no data exists on how many of those companies are owned by minorities, or the ethnic makeup of their workforce. But it’s a safe bet that if Google, Twitter and Apple are struggling, local firms likely are, too.
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