About the Chief IT Architect
Ms. Helen M. Schmitz is the Acting Chief Information Technology (IT) Architect for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She leads the NIH Enterprise Architecture program with the mission to develop a comprehensive plan for IT support that acknowledges the need for both conforming and diverse business processes. Her leadership focus is on the collaborative development of the NIH Enterprise Architecture and sponsorship of architecture and technology transformation initiatives with demonstrated value to NIH.
Prior to serving as the Acting Chief IT Architect, Ms. Schmitz acquired more than twenty years IT experience, providing leadership in support of large, complex enterprises in the private sector and in the Federal Government, in the Department of Defense and civilian agencies. She served with the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was created by the “Federal Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989” (FIRREA) to liquidate the assets of failed savings and loan associations. Subsequently, while working with EDS, she provided infrastructure operations and maintenance support and disaster recovery to the Pentagon and NASD for seven years. She most recently served for four years as the NIH Enterprise Architecture program manager.
Ms. Schmitz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology from Connecticut College. She then worked as a lab technician in microbiology at Wayne State Medical School, in Detroit, Michigan, where she co-published several papers. She is excited to be able to apply her combined knowledge and experiences in biology and IT in her current leadership role at NIH.
Throughout her career Ms. Schmitz has focused on effective communications to enable disparate groups to work together effectively. She continues this focus in her current position as the NIH Chief IT Architect, where she sees her role as a bridge builder between NIH’s scientific and business organizations and the organizations that provide IT support. She welcomes your feedback concerning the NIH Enterprise Architecture and its supporting program.
About the Office of the Chief IT Architect
The Office of the Chief IT Architect (OCITA) is the NIH Enterprise Architecture program management office and is comprised of a fulltime architecture staff as follows:
- Chief IT Architect knowledgeable in most/key enterprise architecture areas
- Architects with focused expertise in current key architectural areas (e.g., integration architectures, modeling, etc.)
- Administrative support.
OCITA's central responsibility is the daily execution and management of the NIH Enterprise Architecture program and associated activities and initiatives. In this capacity, OCITA’s primary responsibilities are to:
- Lead the creation and renewal of architecture and standards
- Lead and facilitate the IT Architecture Domain Team Process
- Manage domain team memberships
- Ensure NIH mission and architecture alignment
- Lead assessments of evolving technologies for standards adoption or renewal
- Plan and recommend architectural migration
- Assess the current environment in specific technical areas
- Publish the architecture in the chosen format
- Conduct awareness/education sessions
- Advise in business and IT planning
- Interpret and communicate architecture issues and choices
- Advise project teams on the use of architecture
- Support projects on assessing adherence when requested
- Evaluate project requests for exceptions to architecture
- Develop recommendations for the Architecture Review Board (ARB) as the basis for decision-making
- Represent NIH architecture to the Department of Health and Human Services
- Provide enterprise architecture reviews in support of the NIH Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process
