Fred Collins '87

In May of 1995, I was hired by IBM directly from Virginia Tech (from my doctoral program) to lead the training program of a large federal agency. Later, as a geospatial architect, I was responsible for the creation, implementation, deployment, and management of IBM’s land registry solutions for clients in Central Europe and Russia. My career progressed to senior information technology architect, where I supported multiple federal agencies and departments in various technology modernization efforts. One particularly interesting project I supported was for the Office of Personnel Management. During a one-year pilot, I successfully solutioned and demonstrated an IBM blockchain-hyperledger-fabric solution for transferring employee records between IT systems within government agencies for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. I acted as the lead solution architect and led a team of blockchain developers, UI developers, and human-resource subject matter experts to successfully field a working prototype. Another highly rewarding project was in January of 2017, when I was assigned to the IBM Health Corps program to partner with the Gorgas Memorial Institute (MINSA) to create digital tools that facilitated more rapid and effective decision-making about infectious disease control. My team, consisting of six IBM'ers, delivered a Geo-referenced System for Vector Control and epidemiologic surveillance of vector-borne diseases to Panama's Ministry of Health and the Gorgas Memorial Institute. The IBM team employed our design thinking methodology to create the mobile app. The team configured a series of geospatial maps, which allowed epidemiologists to view data collection on a map in real time, as opposed to batch submissions which took a week or longer. IBM also provided a tailored version of its spatial temporal epidemiological modeler, with base models for Dengue fever modeling for Panama.

In my current role as an IBM distinguished architect for federal, my responsibilities include identification of new opportunities, business partnerships, technology evaluation, technical solutions, and responding to request for informations (RFIs) and request for proposals (RFPs) for complex on-premise-to-cloud migrations. I’m currently helping the IRS modernize a 1960s era mainframe assembler program, which processes all individual and corporate tax returns, to a modern event-driven architecture on cloud. One interesting aspect of the effort is that we’re using a combination of data-science-driven reverse engineering of the legacy code with forward engineering of the code into Java microservices, events, and business rules, with the assistance of generative AI. In much the same way multilingual people can hold languages in a language-neutral construct, we parse and place the legacy code into such a format and then can reengineer it into any language. The approach is far more accurate and faster than traditional manual approaches. This modernization effort is a key component of the IRS’s plan to modernize its entire tax processing platform. I also serve on the board of directors for the Saint Vrain Valley Innovation Center, which, in partnership with IBM’s Ptech program, is developing today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders, innovators, and changemakers. I've had multiple international assignments as the solution architect responsible for the creation, implementation, deployment, and management of IBM’s land registry solutions in Central Europe and Russia. 

All of my degrees are from Virginia Tech, including a Ph.D. in applied math and statistics, a master’s in industrial and systems engineering, and a bachelor’s in industrial engineering and operations research. I’m an avid skier; own, restore, and race vintage Japanese race cars; and live in Colorado.