Charles E. Vela
President and Chief Architect
R-VOTE© is the brain child of Charles E. Vela, a research engineer with experience leading and managing innovation and applications of advanced technologies to large scale and complex mission critical systems.
For over twenty-five years, he supported federal agencies in transformation and modernization programs and in strategy development and implementation of the Enterprise Life Cycle in the acquisition, design, integration, deployment and operations of large-scale complex, mission critical systems. These include as Lead Engineer for the modernization of US Federal Telecommunications at MITRE, Senior Science Advisor (Chief Scientist) for IITRI, the IRS FFRDC, for the transformation and modernization of the IRS including E-file to submit IRS returns electronically, collecting over 3 trillion dollars; and as Chief Scientist with JTF CAPMED, Vela prepared a strategic, operational and tactical framework for a cohesive enterprise model for the merger of the three military medical departments, Army, Navy, and Air Force in the National Capital Region including Walter Reed National Medical Center, and the integration and deployment of a geographically distributed system to response to a terrorist attack in the Washington Metropolitan Area
Vela has served on multiple boards, including the National Committee on Technology Education; Presidential and Congressional Commission on Women and Minorities in Science; National Research Council’s Knowledge Assessment Committee; NSF Model Institutions of Excellence; and National Academy of Sciences’ Committee to Evaluate the National Institutes of Health Minority Programs.
Vela is also best known for having conceived and coined the term “STEM” and for founding the STEM Institute at several universities in 1992, including CUNY, GWU, UIC and MIT.
Vela has received multiple awards including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring; Science Spectrum Trailblazer Award for contribution to science and technical policy; U.S. Vice-Presidential Re-Inventing Government (Hammer) Award; The Junipero Serra Award for his contribution in STEM education for Latino youth; and NBC4-Telemundo Excellence in the STEM Universe Award.
- Solutions to socio-political-economic stagnation and capital accumulation
- Reducing violence in unstable environments
- Healthcare and National Security posture, mission assessment, and strategy
- Applications of technology to address situational awareness needs
- Intelligent high performance algorithms to solve data intensive and multi-factor problems
- System development lifecycle best practices in the federal environment
Previously, Vela served as Senior Science Advisor (Chief Scientist) at the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). In this capacity, he supported chartering the Vision and Strategy and led the Enterprise Systems Engineering Life Cycle of the modernization program, he served on the technical evaluation panel for the selection of a multi-billion dollar transformation effort. Under the direction of the IRS Commissioner, he also led a study to address customer service concerns. Vela’s strong sense of accountability. coupled with his vast technical expertise, enable him to provide invaluable guidance and strategic direction in response to immense challenges.
At the MITRE Corporation, Vela designed and managed the Decision Support Facility Laboratory, a state of the art, high-performance parallel-computing laboratory. There, he directed R&D in the areas of economic analysis, billing verification, optimization, design, acquisition, and transition management of solutions and cost containment of federal telecommunications systems. Vela also played key roles in the design, acquisition, and transition management of solutions for billing verification and cost containment of telecommunication systems. These efforts saved the federal government over $500 million.
As the Assistant Study Director at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Vela has made significant contributions to science. In this capacity, he contributed to a study that mapped the brain for scientific research and clinical applications.
Vela was founder and former President and CEO of the Center for the Advancement of Hispanics in Science and Engineering Education (CAHSEE). For 15 years, and with over a decade of support from NASA, he pioneered a nationwide system of model programs that prepared thousands of Latino and African American students for leadership positions in science and engineering. He is a former professor of, and research fellow in, electrical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Vela has served on thirty-three boards, commissions, committees and studies, including the Presidential and Congressional Commission on Woman and Minorities in Science; the National Research Council Knowledge Assessment Committee; the National Science Foundation's Model Institutions of Excellence; and the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee to Evaluate the National Institutes of Health Minority Programs; National Commision on Technology Education: "Technology for all Americans". Vela has received twenty-eight awards for his technical innovations and his contributions in science and engineering education. Among these are:
- U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring
- Science Spectrum Trailblazer Award for his contribution to science and technical policy
- U.S. Vice-Presidential Re-Inventing Government (Hammer) Award for his contribution to the transformation and modernization of the Federal Telecommunications System
- The Junipero Serra Award for contribution in science and engineering education of under-represented groups
- U.S. NBC4-Telemundo Excellence in the STEM Universe Award.
Vela holds advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California State University and in Operations Research from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.