DeVance Walker Jr. fought for diversity and economic development in Montgomery County

DeVance Walker Jr. worked in Montgomery County government for more than 40 years, but he served county residents for much longer.

Walker, a former military police officer and professor who was a champion for diversity and economic development, died June 24 of colorectal cancer at age 79.

He had spent his life trying to prove that local minority-owned small businesses were important to the county’s economic growth, family and former colleagues said, helping launch and steer hundreds of businesses in the county through a county-sponsored mentorship program.

For his family, he was known as a giver. He was always looking for ways to uplift and help those around him, according to his children.

“You didn’t always have to ask him for help, you know — he would see that you needed it, and he would go out of his way to provide it,” said Khalid Walker, his son.

Another son, the Rev. JeLani Walker, recalled a family Christmas story his father liked to tell. As the story goes, when DeVance Walker Jr. was a child, his family splurged on a Christmas tree, something they could not always afford. He took one look at the tree, thought of the people down the street and made up his mind.

“Our neighbors don’t have anything,” he told his family. “I’m going to take the tree over there.”

Then he took everything off the tree and carried it to the neighbors’ house, JeLani Walker said.

Walker offered his time to everyone who needed him, sitting on boards and committees across the state and country, including as the education chairman for the Montgomery County chapter of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, and as an NAACP vice president. He was also appointed by Gov. Parris Glendening to serve as a commissioner for Maryland’s Trial Courts Judicial Nominating Commission.

The program he created in the county, the Small Business Mentorship Program, supported more than 300 businesses. In the late 1990s, before modern communication software was popular, he built a massive email network, similar to a newsletter, to ensure that minority businesses were consistently informed about events, news and more, his former colleagues said.

“When I opened Deskmate Office Products Inc. in 1989 at age 22, DeVance was one of the folks making sure I had some support from the county,” said Herman Taylor, who worked with Walker. “To a young CEO in their late 20s, this proved the county didn’t just give you a contract, they gave you a partnership during those times.”

Walker was born in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 22, 1947, to Bessie Brown Walker and DeVance Walker Sr. He graduated from Armstrong High School in Richmond and shortly afterward moved to Santa Barbara, California, to join the United States Air Force. He served as a military police officer at what was then known as Vandenberg Air Force Base, rising to the rank of sergeant. This experience, loved ones said, stayed with him long after his discharge on Aug. 23, 1968.

He enrolled at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California, to study political science and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a doctorate from Howard University. He later returned to Howard University as a professor of political science. He was also an adjunct professor at Coppin State University and the University of Baltimore.

Walker worked in the Montgomery County Public School Office of Human Resources a little more than a decade after the school system had finished integration. There, he was influential in diversifying the county schools’ workforce, council member Laurie-Anne Sayles said in a statement.

“His leadership reflected the very best of Montgomery County — grounded in humility, guided by compassion, and rooted in a steadfast belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed,” Sayles’ statement read.

He transitioned from human resources to become the first minority liaison to a Montgomery County executive, serving under former county executives Charles W. Gilchrist, Sidney Kramer and Doug Duncan. He served as chief of the Division of Small and Minority Business Empowerment at what was then the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development before becoming a senior manager at the Office of Procurement when the department closed. For years, his children had no idea that their father was the chief of the division. He wasn’t one to talk about work in terms of titles or hierarchy, said his former colleagues. To him, it was always about whom he could help.

“While he was a deeply warm, very jovial, and became a friend, he did not play when it came to execution,” Taylor said. “He balanced grace with incredibly high expectations, teaching local businesses how to perform at the absolute highest corporate tier.”

Walker was inducted into the Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame on Nov. 29, 2018.

At home, his children, Jamila Walker, the Rev. JeLani Walker and Khalid Walker, were spoiled, said Jamila Walker. But not in the way people usually mean it.

“It meant pure, unconditional, selfless, unmatched love,” she said.

Walker is remembered as a man who measured life by whom he lifted up along the way. Whether it was carrying a tree across the street or opening up an entire workforce, he spoiled everyone around him with love, friends and family say.

“I have never met anyone who embodied everything humanly good so consistently — from the very first moment you met him through every day, you were blessed to know him,” said Jackie Arnold, a former colleague at the then-named Montgomery County Department of Economic Development.