Page 32 - Florida Sentinel 2-5-16 (2)

Black History: Inventions That Changed The World
BILLY BLANKS
Born in 1955, Billy Blanks is famous for inventing Tae Bo, a fit- ness program that combines martial arts, boxing, and aerobics.
Tae Bo is a combination of the words tae kwon do, which is the Japanese form of martial arts and boxing.
DR. THOMAS MENSAH
Dr. Thomas Mensah was born in Kumasi, Ghana in 1950. His father, J. K. Mensah, was a businessman who shipped cocoa products to chocolate manufacturers in France. Dr. Mensah was an exceptionally bright child, learning to read
newspapers at an early age and becoming fluent in French. As a child, he often conversed in French with his father’s busi- ness associates. He went on to twice win the National Com- petition in France in 1968 and 1970.
Dr. Mensah received his early education at the exclusive Adisadel College Boys' school in Cape Coast. An excellent student, particularly in science and math, he received a schol- arship to study chemical engineering at the University of Sci- ence and Technology Kumasi, Ghana.
An honors student, he graduated in 1974 and was awarded a fellowship from the French government to study Chemical Engineering at the University of Science and Tech- nology in Montpelier, France (USTL). While enrolled at USTL, he took part in a program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received a certificate in Modeling and Simulation of Chemical Processes from the university in 1977. A year later, he graduated from USTL with a PhD.
In 1980, Thomas travelled to the United States where he took a job with Air Product and Chemicals in Allentown, Penn- sylvania. He was a research engineer in the chemical group division. Dr. Mensah, after long research and an innovative use of high-tech video equipment was able to determine that when the centers of the vortices during the mixture process often trapped poorly mixed reactants, allowing them to pro- ceed onto the moving belt.
In 1983 he joined Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York as an engineer. He was brought on to help solve effi- ciency problems in the Corning Fiber Optic manufacturing process.
In 1986, Dr. Mensah moved on to the AT&T Bell Labora- tories in Georgia. At Bell he focused his attention on creating missile systems which utilized fiber optics for their guidance systems.
Dr. Mensah and his colleagues developed missiles that could use the fiber optic technology while traveling at MACH 1 (the speed of sound).
In almost every aspect of his career, Mensah has met with enormous success on projects that have great historical sig- nificance. He has worked for private industry as well as for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense and has been awarded seven patents. He has also received awards and recognition from the high tech community.
He serves as a great model of turning great ambition into great success.
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