Always Learning
Debbie Elcock can discuss with easy familiarity the arcane minutiae of U.S. environmental and energy regulations, as well as their societal and human impact. But ask her what her position is at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, and she pauses. "I have to look at my business card," she says with a laugh. "Here it is: policy analyst. We're not big on titles here. It's a flat organization." That may not be that typical a response for a Tuck alum, but Elcock's career has unfolded well off the beaten Tuck track. The author of more than 200 technical papers, books, and reports, she has helped inform national policy in areas that range from nuclear power to offshore natural-gas drilling to cleaning up after a "dirty" bomb.
Raised by parents who "had an environmental ethic before it was popular," she majored in math at Connecticut College, then went directly to Tuck, "my first and only choice." She recalls, "I wasn't the typical student." She was younger, had no work experience, and was one of only five women in a class of 120 students.
But she was clear-eyed about her goal: "I wanted to work with both scientists and businesspeople to affect environmental policy. Tuck taught me the importance of integrating quantitative skills and analytical thinking into decisions and analyses." Policymakers, she learned, "have surprisingly little understanding of the issues for which they're making policy. They're working on so many things, they can't know enough about them all."
She worked first for The MITRE Corporation, where she led an energy and environmental analysis group that helped project the environmental impacts of alternative energy policies. Then, at CONSAD Research Corporation, she provided management and technical support for environmental planning and analysis. In 1985, wanting a change, she "did an 180-degree flip" and went into commercial real estate development and project finance, first with Oxford Development Corporation and then with Shelter Development Corporation. After three years with the real estate consulting firm Hammer, Siler, George Associates, and encouraged by the renewed public concern for the environment, she returned to the environmental field. In 1991, she joined the Argonne National Laboratory, which conducts cutting-edge research on topics ranging from high-energy physics to climate research to nanotechnology.
Elcock has seen U.S. policy emphasis shift over the years, moving from an earlier concern for countering pollution to green construction and lifecycle assessment today. She's learned that "without a business perspective, some environmental policies may have unintended consequences." For example, a paper she recently authored points out that laws restricting offshore drilling were written to prevent oil spills—not a problem with natural gas—and that overly stringent pipeline-safety rules could shut down many critical "ma-and-pa" gas producers. "There may be more sensible ways to protect the environment and still allow natural gas to be developed and produced," she says. Another paper concluded that today's radioactive-waste regulations could unnecessarily slow the return of people and jobs to a site hit by a dirty bomb. "The current thinking is that the impact would be more psychological and social than health-related."
Elcock often speaks at international conferences and takes advantage of her travels to trek with her husband to exotic places like the Potala Palace in Tibet and Machu Picchu in Peru. But returning to her collegial work environment is a pleasure, she says. "It's stimulating to work on a daily basis with very bright people from a variety of disciplines. I'm always learning."
