Biography

Pat Smoker currently serves as Sr. Director and Head of Information Technology for the Colleges of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University.  Pat provides leadership in developing and implementing a system-wide IT vision and strategy.  He directs college-wide IT solutions towards fulfillment of strategic goals and initiatives in the areas of Research, Teaching, Veterinary Hospital Services, Animal Disease & Diagnostics Lab Services, as well as Purdue Extension – the state-wide organization encompassing the University’s Land Grant mission.  His organization, develops and manages IT resources that translate across the broad spectrum of Purdue Agricultural, Veterinary Medicine, Extension and University Campus activities. 

Pat also serves as a member of Sr. Staff reporting to the Office of the Vice President of Information Technology & CIO at Purdue.  In this capacity, he serves as an academic representative where he and his colleagues represent the needs of faculty and students with respect to core IT services provided at the campus level.  He also assists in the development and implementation of IT policy decisions made by the University with respect to IT provisioning in behalf of academic IT and collaborates broadly to build consensus and unify IT divisions. 

Pat’s did his undergraduate work at Purdue in Industrial Technology with focus on manufacturing automation and mechanical design.  Pat joined Purdue in 1986 and has nearly 30 years of Information Technology experience, leading IT for 27 of those years.  

Pat has directed the deployment of the statewide data network for Purdue Extension, Purdue Research Centers and other Purdue associate and affiliate groups encompassing 121 sites.  He implemented Ag’s unique Computer Procurement Program and innovated an Application Development recharge center that serves all Purdue Campuses.  He led the efforts to implementation of field-scale (1,408 acres) IOT infrastructure as well as high-throughput edge processing and big data pipeline infrastructure built on Hadoop Spark. Pat also helped author and lead the implementation of the Purdue 2010 Campus IT Plan still in place today and has served on numerous committees and advisory groups.  Pat was also honored with the 2012 CIO magazine and the CIO Executive Council's annual ‘Ones to Watch’ award that identifies rising leadership in IT.