Joyce Martin Dixon is an American businesswoman and philanthropist.

Career

Joyce Martin was born in

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; ) is a city in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 299,035; it was estimated to be 307,381 in 2024. It is the List of municipalitie ...

, where she lived with her family as a child on McConnell Road. She graduated from

James B. Dudley High School James Benson Dudley High School is a four-year public high school located in Guilford County in the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. Dudley High School was founded in 1929 as the first black high school in Guilford County, in a school system ...

in 1952, and

Bennett College Bennett College is a private university, private historically black colleges and universities, historically black liberal arts college, liberal arts Women's colleges in the Southern United States, college for women in Greensboro, North Carolin ...

in 1956. Her mother and both her sisters had also attended Bennett College. After leaving college, Martin moved to Florida. Alongside her husband Jacob Dixon, an electrical engineer who had worked on the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

space shuttle program, she was co-founder and co-owner of Creative Management Technology, Inc., a contracting firm based in

Cocoa Beach, Florida Cocoa Beach is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,354 at the 2020 United States census, up from 11,231 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Palm Bay, Florida, Palm Bay–Melbourne, Florida, Melbourne–T ...

, which provided services to government agencies, especially

, for many years, and grew to employ 550 people. The couple sold the company shortly before Jacob Dixon's death in 2004. Martin Dixon moved back to Greensboro in 2006. In 2011 she donated $1 million to her alma mater,

, to pay for the Martin Dixon Intergenerational Center, a laboratory preschool used by elementary education majors and other academics researching young children and early years education, built on the exact site where her father had run a barber shop in the 1940s. This donation was the largest alumna donation in the college's history, and Martin Dixon has continued to fund additional improvements and other projects related to the center, including a 14-seat schoolbus in 2015. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from

for her philanthropy, as well as a "Woman of Substance" award. Dixon has served as chair of the Brevard Community College Board of Trustees, Vice Chair of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation Board, Director of the Southern Area Links, Inc. and President of the Cocoa Beach Women’s Golf Association. She currently serves on Hayes Taylor Memorial YMCA Board of Management. She was awarded the United Negro College Fund's "Outstanding Alumna" award, and was named as Brevard County's "Woman of Distinction".

Personal life

Joyce Martin married Jacob Dixon, her childhood sweetheart, and they had two children. Her daughter Janice Gail died in 1961, aged five, of

purpura Purpura () is a condition of red or purple discolored spots on the skin that do not blanch on applying pressure. The spots are caused by bleeding underneath the skin secondary to platelet disorders, vascular disorders, coagulation disorders, ...

, a form of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

. Martin Dixon set up an organ and tissue donation awareness program in her memory named Linkages to Life. Her son Jacob, a pilot in the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

died in July 1982 in a plane crash in Wichita Falls,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, aged 27, and his parents established a scholarship fund at the school where he graduated in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Jacob Dixon Snr. died aged 73 in 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin Dixon, Joyce Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women in business American women philanthropists Businesspeople from Greensboro, North Carolina 21st-century American women