Mr. Szakal is Distinguished Engineer and Chief Architect of the IBM Federal Software Group. His responsibilities include developing e-Government software architectures using IBM middleware and managing the IBM federal government software IT architect team.

Mr. Szakal holds undergraduate degrees in Biology and Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from James Madison University.

IBM has repeatedly recognized him for his role in building the IBM federal government software business. Mr. Szakal has been a driving force behind IBM's adoption of federal government IT standards and is a member of the IBM Software Group Strategy Team. He and his architect team have been responsible for helping the federal government move e-Government into the On-Demand era. His team has been directly involved with multiple high profile successful government software and services engagements based on open standards and open source. These engagements include the following programs: US Air Force GCSS-IF, Department of Education Office of Student Financial Aid Modernization, FBI Trilogy, IRS Modernization, Customs Modernization, SSA Modernization and the e-filing initiatives at the USDA.

Mr. Szakal is a proponent of service oriented and web services based enterprise architectures and participates in open standards and open source product development initiatives within IBM.