Richard Blackwell

(M.S. IE ’78) 

Richard Blackwell is retired but still consults with public sector health agencies on quality and IT systems and works as an adjunct instructor in ISE. After earning his bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1969, he started a company and worked various jobs. He discovered industrial engineering while managing a warehouse and, after taking prerequisite courses, was accepted into the master’s program at Illinois in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received his MSIE in 1978.

Throughout his career, Blackwell worked as an industrial engineer, software developer, consultant and project manager for various Chicago companies for over 40 years. He finished his career as the manager of services quality and digital Six Sigma at Motorola. Following his (first) retirement, he was employed as the director of process improvement at the Cermak Health Center of the Cook County Jail in Chicago, where he built and managed a group of process and data analysts who helped implement an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. He has also taught operations research, IT management and IT project management at several Chicago universities.

Blackwell has served on the ISE Alumni Advisory Board since 2009 and has supported scholarship funds for students with non-traditional backgrounds like his. His professional interests include Six Sigma quality, quality management system certification, EMR implementation and process improvement through process metrics. Blackwell is a certified Motorola Six Sigma black belt, a PMI project management professional and a lifetime member of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers.