July 19, 2006

BY SANDRA GUY SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Kerrie Holley has become only the second African-American to be awarded the rarified title of IBM Fellow, the computer maker's most prestigious technology honor, but he's remembered in his former South Side neighborhood as a hard-working and utterly reliable young man.

The 51-year-old Holley credits the Children's Center in North Kenwood/Oakland with providing him a respite and a wider world view that helped him climb to the highest tier of the engineering world.

"The most relaxing experience of my life was to spend a few hours every day at that center," said Holley, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He enjoyed crafts and learning from teachers from a variety of cultures, including those at the University of Chicago who stopped by.

Holley's world grew exponentially when he started taking the center's train trips to visit families throughout the United States. His first trip was to Montana, to spend two weeks in the summer with Libby Ross' family. He and the Ross family still keep in touch.

"I was on a train for the first time in my life, to a house in middle-class America," the fomer inner city youngster recalled. "It was a shocking contrast, but it was fun."

He spent seven straight summers in Montana, and made separate train trips to Indiana and southern Illinois.

Sue Duncan, 71, the mother of Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan, founded and still runs the children's center. She remembers Holley as a child as "bright as a button" and an excellent math tutor at the center.

"Kerrie would carry up the stairs a box of fruit, a child of mine -- whatever I asked. He was utterly, totally reliable," Sue Duncan said in an interview. "He was special."

Holley even tutored Arne Duncan.

The guiding lights in Holley's life were his grandmother, who raised him because his mother had drug-abuse problems, and his older brother, Laurence, who excelled in math and was the first family member to attend college.

Holley's grandmother made sure she knew he was safe, and was responsible for his transfer from gang-infested Martin Luther King High School to Kenwood Academy after his first two weeks in high school.

At Kenwood, Holley discovered computers -- at that time, a teletype-like machine connected to a huge mainframe. He recalls the tedious task of numbering hundreds of batch cards in order to enter the proper computer codes, and waiting his turn to run a program he had written.

Yet Holley loved writing software.

Holley graduated from DePaul University with a B.A. in mathematics. Two years later, he got his law degree at DePaul by attending classes at night and working during the day.

His initial career had none of the grandeur of a dot-com start-up looking to make millionaires out of college dropouts. Holley's first job was as a programmer for Sears, Roebuck and Co. at the Sears Tower in Chicago.

He skipped around from job to job and from place to place, landing at IBM in 1986. He left IBM in the early 1990s as the Armonk, N.Y.-based company was suffering record losses. He returned in 1996, and works for IBM's professional services organization.

Holley rose through the ranks to become a chief technology officer, developing software applications that enable data to be exchanged over computer networks.

"We're trying to evolve to a model where customers can assemble software much like kids assemble Lego blocks," he said.

He was the first African American to be named the IBM Distinguished Engineer in 2000. That same year, he was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology, composed of the top 300 technologists chosen from a field of 200,000 technical employees. In 2003, he gained national recognition by winning the Black Engineer of the Year Award.

Holley was selected in September 2004 as one of the "50 most important blacks in research science" by the editors of Science Spectrum magazine and U.S. Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine.

He has worldwide responsibility, so he travels constantly, but he makes time to mentor other ambitious workers, especially African Americans. He advises people to stay optimistic, keep a vision of what life can be, get as much education as possible and find a livelihood they are passionate about.

Holley is still pinching himself about being one of eight IBMers to be named a Fellow.

Said John E. Kelly III, IBM senior vice president, "This year's honorees are responsible for many of our amazing technical breakthroughs and success."

Said Holley, "It was something I never in my wildest imagination thought was in my future."