Under Nigerian-born Thomopulos, Heartland Engineer shows Global Face

摘要

A black CEO running a large U.S. design firm today still is somewhat uncommon. But picture a black CEO running a large and growing international engineering company from a small industrial city on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. Stanley Consultants Inc., under Gregs G. Thomopulos, continues to confound. Not everyone may be surprised, however, by the engineering firm's latest goings-on. The Stanley organization has been doing the nontraditional and unexpected since C. Maxwell Stanley took over the now-91-year-old Musca-tine-based firm in the early 1930s. He started an international foray that, to date, has included work in 90 countries on seven continents. Observers note the irony of a company once run by a peace activist that had 70 volunteers to fill nine initial slots for work in war-torn Iraq.