As the Administrator of Food & Nutrition Services, he supervised over 3,000 employees while instituting a new management program. He is recognized nationally as an expert in government policy and procedure and most sought after as a speaker and consultant to the nation’s leading businesses. He has served as an Assistant to the Governor of Nebraska as well as the OEO National Hearing Officer and Chairman to the Federal Regional Council. Dr. Cornelius was also an Assistant to the President of the United States, having served in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

In November 1979, he took leave from his privately owned business, Cornelius-Wiggins International, Inc, to implement the Economic Development Assistance Center for Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America.

Dr. Cornelius got his start in minority business when he organized the Sacramento Street Businessmen’s Association in Berkeley, California in 1961. He developed cooperative buying, advertising and promotion programs to be used by the minority business firms in the Berkeley area.

A 1953 graduate of Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana where he received a Bachelor of Science Degree, Dr. Cornelius did graduate work at Wichita University and Oklahoma City University. He has been a Vice-President of the NAACP Board of Directors and a member of the Steering Committee of Opportunities Industrialization Centers, the Metropolitan Board of Directors of the Kansas City YMCA, the United Way, the United Black Fund and the Boys & Girls Club. In 1972, he received Anderson University’s Outstanding Alumni Award and has served as a member of the University’s Alumni Council.

In 1973, Dr. Cornelius served as a United States delegate to meet with a Soviet Union delegation touring the United States to discuss American-Soviet relations, foreign market and the impact of the media. The delegation was under sponsorship of the United States Department of State and the American Council of Young Political Leaders.