Lewis Latimer isn’t the first name most people think of during Black History Month. But Craig Robicheaux isn’t most people.

Craig, an electrical engineer for Oncor, said Latimer is a personal hero, best known as a black American inventor who worked with Thomas Edison on the light bulb.

Latimer built a bulb with a carbon filament and even earned a patent for his method of making the filaments, said Craig, a manager in Oncor’s Serve Design group in Fort Worth, Texas.

“He’s a role model, definitely,” Craig said. “But maybe one who a lot of us in our industry don’t know about.”

Craig calls Black History Month a time for celebration. “There are a lot of accomplishments that have taken place in black history that often get overlooked,” he said. “It’s a good time to just view those and think about how they’ve impacted our lives today.

Craig’s list of African American heroes includes former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall for advancing school integration and his own mother.

“I’m thankful to Thurgood Marshall because growing up in Houston, I was able to go to a magnet school,” he said. “That was a tremendous thing that helped me get to where I am now.”

Craig’s academic work helped land him full scholarships to Prairie View A&M University and to the University of North Texas, where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. He worked as an intern at Oncor for two summers before joining the company in 2008.

But it’s his mother, a single parent, who Craig holds in highest regard. “I remember how hard she worked to provide for me and my siblings,” he said. “She started her own business cleaning houses. She also worked as a bartender.”

Today, Craig says, his mom is still working nearly every day as an Uber driver.

“I don’t know if I work as hard as she does, or I even can,” he said. “But she’s definitely the inspiration to keep pushing through no matter what the situation is.”

“We know from history that African Americans had to overcome a lot of obstacles, but have still been able to achieve a lot of things,” he said. “But the message of Black History Month doesn’t just apply to African Americans. We’re all going to face obstacles and we all have to persevere to overcome those trials.”