When Dr. Jeffery Holland came to what was then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment station, he wasn’t looking for long-term employment.
“I came here thinking I might stay a year. I had the intention of going someplace with mountains and cold and snow,” he said, but a higher power intervened.
“Lord just called me. The work was extraordinary, the friends I made were unbelievable, and eventually, I met the woman who became my wife, and just completely settled here, Holland said. “This became home.”
On March 2, Holland retires as the director of the Corps’ Engineering Research and Development Center, ending a 37 1/2-year career — the last seven as manager of one of the most diverse research organizations in the world with seven laboratories in four states — Vicksburg, Champagne, Ill., Hanover, N. H. and Springfield, Va. — employing 2,500 employees, owning facilities valued at $1.2 billion and having more than $2 billion a year research programs that have benefitted both the military and civilian worlds.
During his career, he has also served as ERDC’s deputy director and director of ERDC’s information technology laboratory.
It started with a chance meeting.
He was working on a master’s degree at Vanderbilt when he met Mike Palermo, a Waterways Experiment Station engineer working on his Ph.D.
“I had never heard of the place at all, so he suggested I come down to join him at Christmastime of 1978,” he said.
During his visit, he said, he met several people from the station, “and I wound up asking those guys, do you think I could work at a place like this? Seems like at the time, they might have said ‘No,’ but I wound up with a job offer.”
Holland said the enjoyable part of his job has been the ERDC employees.
“The people are the best part of the whole thing; the passion they have for what they do, their desire to make the world safer and better is very real. It’s not a bumper sticker, and getting to work with these really, really good people is by far the best part of the deal. It always has been.”
“We get the good fortune of seeing the impact that we have; that’s pretty amazing. Some people never get to see that impact; we get to. That’s the fun part; that’s the best part.”
The more difficult aspect of the job can be the process to get an idea or project moving.
“When you have a good idea and you’re ready to get going with it, sometimes somebody else is not ready, or perhaps the system; perhaps it’s just bureaucracy.
“I will admit that I am a more patient man than I was 20 years ago, which does not make me a patient person. It just makes me more patient, because when I see where we should go, I’m ready to go, and sometimes it’s hard to be patient when you know where to go and everybody’s not ready.”
Sometimes, more immediate needs take precedence.
When U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan encountered improvised explosive devices, better known as IEDs, “Our military made it clear that was the most urgent need that it had in Iraq and Afghanistan, and put the word out to us in the science and technology community, ‘You overcome whatever it is that is in your way in a legal, moral and ethical way to get in gear to tackle that problem,’ and we as an organization did that.
“When the need is there, and when the need is as severe as that situation was, then, in the same way that we do when disasters like hurricanes or tornadoes or floods, organizations like the Corps of Engineers are at their very best. The reason we are, is because we are at our singular best because we are singular in mind what our mission is. Take care of people. Take care of property next, but people first.”
He said it is hard to name one highlight of his career.
“I wish I could say there is just one, because there really isn’t. We hired several hundred truly gifted people and brought them on board and they got after it, they went to work. We hired 500 scientists and engineers in less than three years. That was a truly big deal.
“We became the overarching managers of the Department of Defense’s computing program; we manage all the high performance computing for the Department of Defense at all of its sites across the country from here in Vicksburg. That’s about a $280 million program in itself. That one goes to Army, Navy and Air Force sites around the country.”
There has been new construction, including a new headquarters building expected to be completed in June, and the construction of new experimental facilities.
Presently, Holland said, the administration is working on a master plan to prepare for ERDC’s next 100 years.
Part of that planning includes reconnecting with the community.
“The thing that ERDC does, particularly for the military, will always be in a secure environment,” he said. “That has no way of changing. What we will do is after we get out of this headquarters building is to create an open campus environment, particularly of this building, so that we can interact with the research community and the public, something we have not been able to do since 9/11.
And while ERDC will not be able to be the way it was before 9/11, “We will be able to create a larger connection to the public than we have in the past,” and work toward increasing opportunities for public/private partnerships with entrepreneurs in the community that might have chances to compete for outsourcing work.
Holland said he’s received a lot of blessings and opportunities since coming to Vicksburg, like meeting his wife and raising his family, “But I’ve also had the chance to have five or six different roles in this place, so through the years, I’ve been able to move up and out and see opportunities expand every so many years, and there was something new to do, something new to learn. That opportunity to learn something new kept the job fresh.
“I’ve gotten to work on dozens of different topics. I’ve been in every state in the United States, except one, on business. I’ve been in 25 countries around the world, multiple continent. This job’s let me see the planet and given me the opportunity to do things that I’m sure my mom and dad would have loved to do if they had the chance.”
He’ll miss the ERDC employees “and I’ll miss being right in the middle everything.”
Being in the middle of everything, however, is also something he won’t miss.
“There’s some things that are fun to be in the middle of, and there’s some things that are not fun to be in the middle of all the time,” he said. “The way I’m wired, I’m an integrator by nature, so the way I’m wired I carry everything around with me all the time. It would be nice to put it down for a while.”
He said he wants to work on economic development with the city and the state, adding, calling it a pretty good challenge, “And one that’s very exciting to me. I think there’s some real opportunities that can be done in this community.”
He plans to remain in Vicksburg, adding his wife’s parents live in Yazoo City and her brothers live Jackson and McComb.
He is active in First Baptist Church as Sunday school teacher and deacon and sings in the choir. He and is a trustee of Mississippi College. His wife is the preschool director at First Baptist, and he teaches young married couples.
“I was going to stay a year, and I did, over and over and over. This is where I was supposed to be; it just took me a while to understand it.”