When Leona Anderson was a young girl in Los Angeles, she knew she was part Native American, as her father always told her this. Her father was born and raised in Broken Arrow, Okla., and he would visit his hometown for a month each summer and visit the Cherokee Nation in Bixby, Okla., to spend time with his sister. Her father’s visit was about reconnecting with his sister, but it was also about providing her with much needed assistance. “My dad would help her with projects around her house and garden,” says Anderson, this year’s winner of the Blazing Flame Award. “He would help her financially as well.”
Eventually, after she was married and had children, Anderson followed in her father’s footsteps and made annual visits to see her aunt in Oklahoma. Like her dad, Anderson and her family would pitch in and help her aunt, and when they weren’t working, would learn about her family and the tribe’s history and culture. Some of the lessons were practical: after her husband burned his arm on one visit, Anderson went with her aunt to a traditional healer, who mixed up a cream with aloe vera and other natural ingredients that quickly healed the wound.
Back home in Los Angeles, Anderson’s mother also continuously reinforced the importance of helping others. “My mom just about ran the community center in our neighborhood,” she says. “Everybody knew my mom, and her door was open to everyone. Whether they needed something to eat or drink, counseling on raising kids, or help with their marriage or life in general, they knew they could come to our house.”
Anderson embraced those early lessons about serving others and made them the foundation of her career. Today, she is a human resources generalist for Engineering Test and Technology, which is part of The Boeing Company’s Defense and Space operation in Mesa, Ariz. Before joining Boeing, Anderson worked for AlliedSignal/Honeywell in Tempe, Ariz. What animated her in both positions is the same motivation her parents had. “I always knew HR was the path for me because it connects with helping others,” she says.
In recent years, Anderson’s focus has been on diversity and inclusion and expanding opportunities for Native students. Among other things, Anderson is a founding member of the Boeing Native American Network for the Mesa site, and a member of the its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. In her years at Boeing, she has forged a strong partnership with AISES and ensured the company has a conspicuous presence each year at the AISES National Conference. But her advocacy for outreach and recruitment of Native students goes well beyond the conference. Anderson has secured over $30,000 for scholarships and another $30,000 to purchase laptops for students who live on reservations.
More recently, Anderson spearheaded a pilot program for Mesa’s Boeing Native American Network team that brings Boeing’s DreamLearners paper airplane STEM build to Native students across the state. The program provides students with hands-on instruction about the basic elements of flight and what it takes to build an airplane — from the engineers who need to understand lift, weight, drag, and thrust as well as financing and supply chains. Students at Pechanga Chámmakilawish School in Temecula, Calif., were the first to experience the DreamLearners program, and Anderson plans to offer monthly events for other Native schools across Arizona.
Anderson has spent her life and career helping others. But her advice to Native students emphasizes the role they play in helping themselves by pursuing their education. “Education is something that can’t be taken away from me,” she says. “Sometimes it’s a struggle to go through high school, but you have to continue on to higher education because it’s the key to success.”
