Kimberly D. Moore
KDM Engineering
For challenging and changing the energy infrastructure to be more inclusive; for inspiring young women to enter the engineering profession; and for being a fierce supporter of women and minorities in STEM.
Kimberly D. Moore entered the engineering profession as an electrical design engineer for Exelon Nuclear. This training and experience led to other positions in project management, quality assurance, and distribution design. It also ignited a desire to build her own engineering firm.
Fast forward 20 years: Moore is founder and president of KDM Engineering. The professional engineering consulting firm focuses on power distribution design, gas distribution, and telecommunications design. Highly regarded and sought after in her field, she specializes in engineering and consulting, program and project management, utility coordination, drafting, and permitting.
Her journey to entrepreneurship was rife with challenges and personal loss. She launched KDM Engineering in 2008 just as the Great Recession took hold of the economy. She paused the company briefly to care for her ailing father, who later died, followed by the deaths of her brother and grandmother.
Undeterred, she continued to strategically build her company without external funding and leveraged her exemplary reputation and long-standing connections in the industry to grow her business. When Moore began her career, few engineers looked like her. She purposed to assemble a diverse team to offer clients distinct and varied perspectives to help solve their complex engineering problems. Today, the privately owned company is certified as woman owned, minority owned, and a disadvantaged business enterprise (WBE/MBE/DBE) and employs more than 100 employees in three states. Thirty-two percent are women.
A fierce supporter of women and minorities in STEM, in 2016 Moore founded Calculated Genius, a nonprofit intent on educating and enlightening underrepresented youth in engineering and other STEM fields. Calculated Genius awards annual scholarships of up to $5,000 per student to women pursuing STEM-related degrees at the collegiate level and hosts a summer scholars program for students attending Chicago Public Schools. Calculated Genius has also paired students with local STEM professionals through its mentorship program.
Moore has received many awards for her achievements and her work in the community. The National Association of Women Business Owners Chicago named her its Woman Business Owner of the Year. Recent honors include Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 (2019), the 2020 National SBA Illinois Rising Star Small Business Owner of the Year, Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women in STEM (2020), and EY Entrepreneur of the Year Midwest Winner (2020), and others.
A graduate of Northern Illinois University (NIU), Moore holds a B.S. in electrical engineering, M.M. in sound engineering, and is currently enrolled at NIU, working toward a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. She sits on the NIU Alumni Association Board, city of Chicago Affirmative Action Advisory Board, Calculated Genius Board, and other private company boards. She is a member of the Society of Women Engineers, IEEE, NSBE, the National Association of Women Business Owners, and the American Association of Blacks in Energy, among other associations.
In her spare time, Moore continues to pursue her other passion: music. As a creator and sound engineer, she loves working with talented artists to produce and record new music.
