Some of the Brussels site staff at Collin's 30 years with MITRE celebration: back row - Jerry Friedman, Kent Wiemeyer, Vince Maguire, Rob Bahnij; front row - Don Fulwood, Mary Lou Collins, Keith Hartley

For Systems Engineer Mary Lou Collins, MITRE has been the place for a wide variety of career opportunities. In her 30 years at MITRE, she's worked at four sites-24 years in Bedford, Massachusetts, two at the Langley site in Virginia, three in Reston and McLean, Virginia, and the past year in Brussels, Belgium. In all her assignments, she has had the chance to tackle a number of challenging projects. Her latest venture is at the MITRE Belgium site supporting NATO command and control systems.

"At NATO, the MITRE site supports a variety of activities for the NATO Command, Control, and Consultation (C3) Agency," explains Collins. "My focus is on architectures, policy, and requirements for command, control, and consultation systems, primarily with an information security focus. This involves addressing security issues for the United States and NATO directly and through the NATO committee and working group structure."

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the job is being able to facilitate an exchange between MITRE experts in Department of Defense (DOD) architecture activities and the NATO people who are developing architectures for NATO. "For example, our site hosted a visit by MITRE's Kathy Sowell. She gave an extremely successful presentation about the DOD Architecture Framework to audiences at NATO Headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and NC3A," said Collins. "Now I am beginning to work with the group that is producing a security architecture for the NATO C3 System and, again, I am encouraging the incorporation of DOD architecture concepts into NATO's approach."

Collins' experience at the MITRE Brussels site has had its own distinctive rewards. "Being here, I have had the opportunity to travel and meet people from all the NATO nations," she says. "In just one year, I have participated in working group and committee meetings in Belgium, Hungary, the Czech Republic, England, Poland, and the Netherlands. The national hosts are wonderfully hospitable and offer a rare opportunity for us to work in their organizations and enjoy their countries."

Collins started her career at MITRE shortly after completing graduate work at Boston College. "Over the years, as my personal life changed, so did my situation at MITRE," reflects Collins. "I came to MITRE Bedford in 1969 and left a few years later when my first child was born. Two more children, three more years, and we were living in Hampton, Virginia. I rejoined MITRE and worked part-time for two years at the site there. Then back to Massachusetts, and depending on day care and school schedules, I worked various part-time arrangements until the economic crunch of the college years. Following that, I moved to Virginia to be closer to family. And the last move was this wonderful opportunity to spend a few years in Europe. Looking back, it just seemed that with all the changes, there was always a way to work out what I wanted with MITRE."