The Cheryl W. Snead Servant Leadership Award

About Cheryl Watkins SneadCheryl Watkins Snead was a beloved and successful businesswoman, community leader, mentor, and a compassionate and passionate servant leader. Her dynamic, trailblazing spirit and infectious smile had the innate ability to lift-up those around her while maintaining the ambitious and energetic focus of a true leader. While immensely successful, Cheryl was also humble, patient, and a passionate advocate for the empowerment of youth, people of color, women, and small businesses. Cheryl

was an incredible soul who inspired and impacted so many around her and who was a champion of the process of continual improvement.

Cheryl’s life and career exemplified her pioneering and inspirational spirit. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from UMass Amherst with a B.A. degree in Mechanical Engineering. After honing her engineering and management skills at General Electric and earning her M.B.A. degree from Purdue University, Cheryl charted her own path in 1991 by founding Banneker Industries, Inc., named after Benjamin Banneker, the first recognized African-American mathematician, astronomer and inventor. For nearly 30 years, Cheryl led Banneker to incredible heights, becoming one of the most successful women- and minority-owned businesses in the country. Throughout the years of business growth and success, Cheryl never stopped giving back. She served on various non-profit and for-profit boards locally, regionally, and nationally. Her generosity and “get-to-work” spirit earned her numerous awards, for both her business accomplishments and her ongoing civic work. As an avid reader of The Daily Word, she lived her life knowing that whoever desires to become great shall be a servant and whoever desires to be first shall be slave of all (Mark 10: 43-44).

About the Award

Cheryl’s life and legacy can best be summed up in the famous quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato or Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second

theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.

The Southern New England Chapter of the American Heart Association Nomination Form

The Cheryl W. Snead Servant Leadership Award

2019 will be the inaugural year that the Southern New England Chapter of the American Heart Association presents the Cheryl W. Snead Servant Leadership Award to a distinguished woman who best embodies the mission and purpose of the Go Red for Women Movement by:

Serving as a relentless force to educate their community about healthy living for a world of longer healthier lives.

Relentlessly working as an inspirational change agent that manages with enthusiasm and leads with passion for the benefit of others.

Demonstrating the core values and behaviors of a true servant leader through consistent service to marginalized & impoverished populations.

NominatorSalutation: Date:First Name: Last Name:Email: Phone:Company/Organization: Title:Relationship to Nominee:

NomineeSalutation: Date:

First Name: Last Name:Email: Phone:Company/Organization: Title:

Questions1. How does the nominee/candidate embody the mission and purpose of the Go Red for Women

Movement? (Serving as a relentless for to educate their community about healthy living for a world of healthier living)

2. Describe or list the core values and behaviors that the nominee/candidate exemplifies through servant leadership through consistent service to marginalized & impoverished populations.

3. What makes this nominee/candidate an inspirational change agent that manages with enthusiasm

and leads with passion for the benefit of others?

4. What is the one thing you would like us to know when considering this nominee/candidate for the award?