2021 HENAAC Awards
Major General R. Mark Toy is a 4th generation Chinese American born in San Francisco, CA. Upon graduating from high school, Mark accepted a congressional nomination to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating on May 27th, 1987 with a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In his 35th year of service, Major General Toy currently serves as the Chief of Staff for the United Nations Command stationed at Camp Humphreys in South Korea. As Chief of Staff, Major General Toy is the staff lead for a 4-star joint, multinational headquarters that is recognized as the lead for Armistice Agreement enforcement and an enabler for security and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
As a general officer, Major General Toy has commanded three different engineer divisions for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: the Mississippi Valley Division, the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, and the South Pacific Division. As a colonel, he served as Chief of Staff at headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Commander and District Engineer for the Los Angeles District in California. As a lieutenant colonel, he commanded the 84th Engineer Battalion in combat for a year-long overseas deployment.
Major General Toy has moved 18 times in his Army career and has deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He has earned numerous awards and decorations including: the Army Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Meritorious Unit Citation, Army Superior Unit Award, Combat Action Badge, Parachutist Badge, and the Silver Order of the deFleury Medal.
Major General Toy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in operations research from West Point, a Master of Business Administration from Boston University, a Master of Science degree in environmental engineering from UCLA, and a Master of Science degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He is also a registered professional engineer in the states of Arizona and Virginia.
GMiS first encountered Major General Toy when he was the Commander for the Los Angeles District. Even with those major responsibilities, he found time to sponsor our Viva Technology programs in the Southern California area. And he was instrumental in realizing and executing Great Minds in STEM’s revolutionary STEM-Up program, a 5-year initiative in partnership with the DoD that brought year-round STEM awareness to dozens of schools across East Los Angeles.
During his time at the Army Corps of Engineers, General Toy was a force of nature here at the GMiS Conference. He’s hosted many of our awards events, manned the USACE career fair booth, met with College Students every change he got, and made time to personally meet and welcome candidates hired at at the conference. I think the lasting memory for many was his leading students and professionals gathered for an awards dinner in a foot-stomping rendition of “We Will Rock You.”
He is a leader that brings trust, compassion, stability, and hope in all his assignments -- people naturally want to follow him and be inspired. He’s also made a bit of history: Major General Toy is the first member of the armed forces to receive the Chairman’s Award.
The GMiS Chairman’s award was born in 1989 to recognize an outstanding Los Angeles educator, the legendary Jaime Escalante. All of the award categories at that time were for professionals making world-class contributions in Science and Engineering, and Escalante didn’t quite fit into any of the award categories. So, the GMiS Board of Directors gave the Chairman the sole discretion to recognize no more than one additional individual per year with a HENAAC award who has had an extraordinary impact on STEM in the community, in their industry, or across the country.
Over the years, the original GMiS Chairman, our founder Ray Mellado, also used the Chairman’s award as a platform to honor individuals who may not have been of Hispanic origin themselves, but whose impact in STEM targeted and benefitted Hispanics and people of color in profound ways.
Past winners of the Chairman’s Award include: Former Lockheed Martin Corporation CEOs Mr. Robert J. Stevens and Ms. Marilyn Hewson; The Hon. Carlos M. Ramirez, P.E., former mayor of the City of El Paso; Michael Carroll, Ph.D., former Dean of the School of Engineering at Rice University; Tyrone Tayborn, Founder of Hispanic Engineer and Black Engineer Magazine as well as the BEYA conference; and Mr. Fred Whipple, Vice President of the Shell Oil Company.