fred.smits@alaska.edu
907-450-8330(v) 907-450-8381(f)

System Services
Butrovich Building, Suite 101
PO Box 755320, Fairbanks, AK 99775-5320

Fred Smits was appointed as the Executive Director of OIT Infrastructure Technology Services on 12/22/06. He had been serving as the Interim Director since the OIT reorganization was announced on 12/12/05. Prior to then, he had been the Executive Director of Systems Servers in the pre-merged organization. He joined the University on 11/01/97 as the Manager of Technical Services. His current job is similar to what he has been doing at the University for nearly ten years only more intense. He supervises 50+ employees in seven departments (Data Center Operations, Network Engineering, Network Operations, Telephone Services, Technical Services, Security Administration, and Windows Server Administration). Areas of responsibility include hardware and operating systems for e-mail, databases, and computer networks systemwide.

He was born to Latvian parents in Germany. He later emigrated to the United States, arriving in the US on a troop ship when he was 5. He grew up mainly in New York and California. He served in Panama and Vietnam with the US Army. He has a business degree from Pepperdine Univeristy. He has worked with computers since the late 1960s. Previously, he worked for several defense contractors and came to the University after working as a civilian contractor in IT for the Saudi Arabian Air Force for five years.