Timeline
Birth: 7/10/1981
Baptized: 7/10/1988
Graduated HS: 5/1999
Gave life to Christ:
2000
Married: 8/11/2001
Graduated College:
5/2004
Nzinga attended six
schools before graduating High School:
K – Osborne Elem. In
1-2 – Claiborne Elem.
In
3 –
4-5 – Melaleuca Elem. in
6-7 – Jeff Davis Middle
in
8-12 – McMain Secondary
in
While in High School,
Ms. Adams was involved in the
following activities:
National Honor Society,
McMain Marching Band, McMain Concert
Band & Orchestra.
She was also a dancer
at Kelly
School of Dance .
While in college,
Nzinga was involved in National Society
of Black Engineers ,
Engineer's Club
, American Society of Civil
Engineers
, Black
Student Association ,
and many activities of her
church,
However, most times you
could have found her at home
with
her husband , Michael T. Jones.
After graduation, Nzinga's days
consisted of work and
church.
She and her husband
attended Deliverance and
where they were also members
of the
Praise Team.
When they to Texas, the
Lord led them to join
Galilee Praise and
Worship Center. After their assignment at
Galilee was completed,
they removed their membership.
They are not currently
members of any church, yet
Mike is still in
training for his ministry and Nzinga is
being drawn further into hers.
Nzinga has also
recently found another outlet to dance -
she has joined LA Dance Company where
she has been appointed
Rehearsal Director.
After
successfully passing the FE (Fundamentals of
Engineering
Exam)
in April '04 on her first
time,
Nzinga has been
certified as an EIT (Engineer in Training).
Since her graduation in
May 2004, Nzinga worked
at the
Oklahoma Department of Transportation
until she moved to
After her brief stint
there, followed by 4 months of searching,
Nzinga landed another
EIT position at
the Houston District
Headquarters of
the Texas Department of Transportation.
Being an EIT simply
means that after working for four years
she too will be qualified to take the
PE (Principles and Practice of Engineering Exam)
and will then be a PE herself!
Wow... talk about a mouthful!
Being an EIT at ODOT,
Nzinga rotated through the department
seeing the
various functions of Engineers
in ODOT's various divisions.
In ODOT, Nzinga saw the
Materials, Traffic, Maintenance,
Survey, Construction,
Planning &
Research, Roadway, and
Bridge divisions, just to name a few.
After a year of seeing
what the Engineers do, Nzinga got to
choose
which department she wanted
to work in
and continue her carrer path there.
Nzinga choose Roadway Design.
In Roadway, she
designed the horizontal and vertical curves
in the roadway,
as well as made sure
there was
adequate drainage.
As an EIT at LopezGarcia Group,
Nzinga was responsible
for entire Transportation designs,
including Traffic Control Plans,
Cross-Sections, and Plans & Profiles.
EITs at TxDOT do what EITs at other jobs do.
But this job is
slightly different in that Nzinga
is in the Traffic
Engineering section.
In TE she is currently
assigned to the Signing & Striping section
where she is
responsible for the portion of the roadway plans that
detail the layouts of
all signs and pavement markings.
But since TE is so
diverse, she is allowed to work on many other things as well.
She is the Special
Events coordinator for the district
(all parades, bike
rides, fun runs, etc. that want to hold their event
on a state road must be
permitted through her),
she assists the Signals
section with their Signal Warrant Studies
(determining if a
location has what it takes to install a signal),
and she also does other
varied jobs.
All in all, she has
found that she really loves
Transportation
Engineering above all other aspects of Civil Engineering.
