As an engineer I love good quantitative models. As a business manager and consultant I tend to find them useful, but
too often inadequate. Unstated and often unrecognized assumptions and oversights lead model predictions to depart from reality
over time. My background leads me to approach issues both quantitatively and qualitatively. As my satisfaction with quantitative
models has declined I have increasingly focused on qualitative aspects of modeling and model development. A brief review of
my background may be helpful in understanding the skills and perspectives I bring to projects.
My fundamental view
of the world is strongly influenced by biological and ecological concepts. I grew up on a farm in Oklahoma across the road
from a stream where I fished and hunted for years. I subconsciously learned the rhythm of the seasons on the farm and of the
creek. I didn't realize it at the time but I became aware of the invisible networks of causality in ecosystems. These
insights were subsequently reinforced at two National Science Foundation programs - one in biology at the University of Texas
at Austin and one in marine biology at the Ocean Springs Marine Institute near Biloxi, Mississippi.
A
scholarship at the University of Texas in chemical engineering led me to abandon biology and to become an engineer. After
a year at DuPont's Research Labs and five years in the United States Navy, I joined Exxon Chemicals. There I began working
on an MBA and soon took the position of Financial Analyst, coordinating the financial analysis, capital planning, manpower
planning, strategic planning for the Baytown Plastics Plant. A few years later, I took a headquarters position as Financial
Analyst for the Plastics Division with similar but expanded responsibilities and had to end my MBA classes due to time constraints.
I learned to process and analyze huge volumes of data and information - a skill that has played a role throughout my career.
My years at Exxon Chemicals were important because I had the privilege of working with very talented, capable, and dedicated
colleagues. On the whole things went very well. I learned a great deal about financial analysis, business metrics, strategy,
planning, and executive management. My success was reinforced when I was offered the position of Financial Analyst for all
of Exxon Chemicals Americas. My experience, however, planted my first seeds of discontent with conventional, reductive problem
solving and planning. And, I wanted to manage my own business.
When Air Products and Chemicals offered me
a position as a Business Area manager I was ready for to take the lead. Front line management reinforced the need for flexibility
and the need for strategies that accommodated the uncertainties inherent in the real world. I loved the job and I loved the
company, but family considerations forced me to take a consulting job with Chem Systems where I developed business analyses,
opportunity and market assessments, and strategic plans. Once again I was dealing with huge volumes of information. When Chem
Systems closed their Houston office in the mid-80's I was given the choice of moving to New York or being laid off. I
chose the latter and took a two-year sabbatical to concentrate on photography and the courses I had occasionally taught for
Rice University.
During the sabbatical I was approached by several acquaintances to help them develop management
information systems for their companies: an insurance company and a crude oil trading company! I had a ball. Going into a
new company, determining what information I would want to have if I was running the company, formalizing the acquisition of
the data, and developing the software and computer systems to process and deliver the inforrmation they needed.
I began studying informational and communicational theory. I studied system dynamics and general system theory. I studied
problem solving and creativity. I worked with neural networks and genetic algorithms. Over the next five years I became increasingly
fascinated by how people perceive and process information. The benefits and weaknesses of reductive processes led me to seek
broader methodologies and eventually led me to the Studies of the Futures program at the University of Houston at Clear Lake.
There I found more methods and approaches for dealing with uncertainty and became proficient as a facilitator. My experience
in handling data was highly beneficial as I learned to scan hundreds of information sources to identify emerging trends and
issues on a monthly basis. I had the privilege of providing input to Toyota's original specifications for the Prius and
of working with General Motors on a "Vision of the Global Consumer - 2020."
Upon finishing the Masters
Program at UHCL I worked with James Ritchie-Dunham to develop qualitative systems approaches for the Strategic Decision Simulation
Group. I became increasingly convinced that qualitative systems methodologies offered unrealized benefit for futures studies
and entered the doctoral program in Futures Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. My doctorate was awarded in February
of 2010.
My doctoral work focused on the evolutionary and behavioral tendencies of systems and system structure
and uses validated observations to generate insights to the nature of the probable future. In July, 2004 I presented one of
eight papers introducing the new field of Qualitative System Dynamics. My doctoral work was featured in a monograph on systems
approaches to evaluation published by the American Evaluation Association.
