At the reception over 20 project managers from across the country came to Albuquerque to hire for their specific locations. She also spoke from the IBM employees and recruits perspective. Begay stated that she felt that IBM is a leader in a growing list of companies that are now turning up their recruitment efforts toward the Indian community. Begay started her career in technology many years ago and said she started with a company that had eight Native people out of 8,000. She said whether Indian people who worked in corporate environment wanted it or not, they were going to have to educate their co-workers, supervisors and colleagues about being a Native American.
Indian people have to overcome in order to be where they are.
Begay believes this is why the Project View was so unique. There was a diverse group of Indian people at the dinner, and the fact that so many of the current employees are still new to the company, it wasn't easy to distinguish the IBM Native employees and the recruits. Some of the Indian recruits came from Muskogee, Beggs, Oklahoma City and Lawton. Other Indian students came from Hawaii, Navajo Reservation, Montana, almost immediately friendships were struck with the Native IBM employees who came from their offices across the country. After the dinner a private conversation took place between Native recruits and current Native employees.