Also helping lead the drive for more diversity in engineering is Cloud, a director of project engineering at Melbourne-based L3Harris Technologies Inc. and the chair of the L3Harris Employees of African Descent employee resource group, which has more than 1,300 members. "We need to understand that diversity is a plus, not a negative," said Cloud, who worked at Lockheed Martin Corp. for 18 years before joining L3Harris 2½ years ago. He said, in engineering — at one time a profession dominated by white males — diversity of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation is crucial, and helps create "diversity of thought" that helps the creative process of engineering.