Leon Brooks, of Brooks & Associates, frequently says he was in the right place at the right time. But just being there wasn’t enough. He had to see an opportunity, be open to it and then meet the requirements. He did it several times.

Once was after his first semester at the University of Texas, Arlington. The Dallas native needed to work, and Western Electric was hiring blacks for the first time. He was one of five African-Americans to integrate that work place.

When he was laid off in 1963 at the age of 20, he visited an uncle in San Diego who worked for Pacific Bell. At his uncle’s urging, Brooks applied and was hired to work in PacBell’s central equipment office with his uncle. In the right place at the right time once again, two days before he began that job, he was asked to become one of San Diego’s first two African-American installers instead.

Brooks was artistic and had always wanted to be an architect. He entered Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, working summers and taking leave from his installer’s job during the school year. Later, he learned that PacBell had a real estate department, and the year before his 1975 graduation he was hired as an architect-structural engineer.

During those years, he married and had two children.

He worked for PacBell as a senior architect in 10 Southern California counties, retiring in 1983, after 20 years with the company. Now as a design planner with his own firm on Hancock Street, Brooks has been the project administrator for new buildings at Morse High School, construction of Kumeyaay Elementary School, on several South Bay District schools and additions, for St. Stephen’s Retirement Center and on dozens of other jobs.

Brooks has been a quiet activist all his life, from his teen days marching with the NAACP to desegregate Dallas establishments to today. His Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity members mentor Morse and Lincoln high school students and sponsor San Diego’s Martin Luther King Day Parade.

He is serving his seventh term on the San Diego County Planning Commission and is a charter member of the San Diego Council of Black Engineers and Scientists.

He lives with his wife Jennifer, who owns Clark Consulting. His two children are Alycia, who lives in Los Angeles, and Leon III, born and raised in San Diego and now living in his father’s hometown of Dallas.

— Sandy Pasqua