Subject:

Retirement of Assistant Vice Chancellor for Contracts and Grants Linda Collins

Following 33 years of dedicated service to UC San Diego, Linda Collins
will retire effective June 30, 2020.

Since Linda’s appointment as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Contracts and
Grants (OCGA) in 2010, she has supported the campus research enterprise
in achieving record-breaking award funding. During her tenure, the
campus contract and grant portfolio experienced 10 consecutive years of
growth exceeding $1 billion.

Linda has provided leadership of the contract and grant enterprise,
implementing effective stewardship over the solicitation, negotiation,
acceptance and related post-award management of sponsored project
funding for UC San Diego.

Under Linda’s expert guidance, OCGA was transformed from a cultural,
technological and organizational standpoint enabling more personal,
efficient and timely services through streamlined processes and a
commitment to being “best-in-class” services. In pursuit of this goal,
Linda led the development and implementation of information technologies
to support research administration through the Electronic Research
Administration Program (eRAP),including the electronic Proposal
Development (ePD) system resulting in the first generation online ePD
system across our campus of approximately 1,500 investigators and 600
departmental administrators. More recently, Linda led a second
generation transformation across the entire campus research enterprise
to implement Kuali Research--an Enterprise Systems Renewal effort--as a
comprehensive, next-generation contract and grant platform. Linda’s
leadership was critical to the successful campus-wide launch of the
Kuali system in January 2020, creating a roadmap for the future.

Linda’s “best in class” vision extended to commitment to the
professional development of OCGA staff members. She implemented a career
development cross-training program that provided staff the opportunity
for upward career mobility. Consonant with her commitment to staff was
the long-term goal of improving customer service to the entire research
community at UC San Diego.

Linda also recognized the need to deliver enhanced reporting to campus
leaders to enable strategic decision making. She led OCGA efforts to
turn contract and grant data into easily assessable, actionable
information for both faculty and administrators. Finally, she
facilitated the development of standardized models for research trends
and key performance indicators.

Linda has collaborated with colleagues to support efforts to grow and
diversify UC San Diego’s external funding portfolio. One example is
Linda’s partnership with the Office of Innovation and Commercialization,
enabling OCGA contract officers to develop the knowledge and skills to
execute on numerous high-profile, large-scale industry contracts,
increasing this critical component of the research portfolio by 95% from
$105 million in FY16 to $205 million in FY19.

Like many of her colleagues across the university, Associate Vice
Chancellor for Innovation and Commercialization Paul Roben expressed
appreciation for Linda’s strategic assistance in helping his team
optimize their service to UC San Diego researchers: “Linda has been an
incredible asset. She was instrumental in aligning the contracts and
grants team with the commercialization function of the university to
streamline and advance both efforts. She will be greatly missed.”

Prior to joining OCGA, Linda led the university’s Procurement and
Business Contracts department for more than 20 years. She was
responsible for managing all aspects of purchasing materials, goods and
services for the university as well as oversight of policy, regulatory
and legal matters. Linda was a pioneer in evolving higher education
procurement from a transactional operation into a streamlined strategic
function with advanced business solutions. She launched multiple
programs including Express Card, Express Order and the first generation
of Marketplace.

Linda’s innovative spirit and efforts also include contributing to the
proof of concept and ultimate launch of Blink.ucsd.edu in 2002, a
landmark undertaking for UC San Diego as an integrated online source of
information, training and tools for faculty and staff.

I have long recognized that Linda is the type of administrative leader
that universities of the future need: willing to think boldly and bring
transformations into reality. Her careful and creative efforts coupled
with her commitment to her staff and faculty have helped UC San Diego
continue to be at the forefront of research in the nation.

Please join all of us in the Office of Research Administration in
expressing sincere gratitude to Linda for her lasting contributions to
our university’s world-class research enterprise. We wish her well in
her retirement.

Sandra A. Brown Vice Chancellor for Research