I have been fortunate to have been friends with Kathy Fallon Lambert ‘90 for more than a decade. One of the things which have impressed me about Kathy is that she gets involved when she sees an important cause or issue - whether it be working as an undergrad to help raise energy conservation awareness on campus or lobbying for stricter water quality terms in hydroelectric dam licenses through her work with the Appalachian Mountain Club. Equally impressive to me, though, is that she uses her activism to bring people together, not deepen divisions.

Her career path has spanned many fields, from activism to the regulatory world to research. After graduating from Dartmouth, she attended the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, graduating in 1992. She went on to work for the Appalachian Mountain Club, Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation, and to serve as the founding executive director of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation. She recently left Hubbard Brook to found her own consulting business - ECOLOGIC, a firm specializing in the translation and application of science to public policy and natural resource management. She lives in Hartland, Vermont with her husband Dan Lambert ‘92 and son Remy.

While I knew about her different roles, I didn’t know much about why she chose them. I took the opportunity this interview presented- and a sunny August afternoon on the Lebanon Green - to hear about how she navigated her environmental career.

Suzanne Spencer: Where did your interest in the environment originate?
Kathy Lambert: It came from a connection to a place near my home in Maine where I could go and it was quiet and full of trees and surrounded by water. I knew it was there because it was protected by the local conservation commission and a group of citizens who cared enough to set it aside. But at the time I was growing up, none of that even entered my consciousness. It was just a place to go for solace ….. Particularly [during] those teenage years when there was a lot of stuff going on. I refer to that a lot when I think about what compels me to try to protect the environment.

Those years were also a time when there was big national debate on nuclear weapons and energy and there was an organization called SANE - Students Against Nuclear Energy. We formed a student group of SANE out of concern about justice and the impacts of energy on people and the importance of having a voice in the process. And over time, those two interests - that personal connection to a place and concern over justice, safety, health and energy came together and compelled me to stay in this field for the past 12 years.

SS: What were your main influences at Dartmouth? What shaped your focus?
KF: One thing I learned at Dartmouth was that individuals can make a difference. The fact that the Dartmouth Outing Club was student-run and a lot of responsibility was given to those students to make a statement. Through spending a couple of years chairing the Environmental Studies Division [of the DOC], I saw that we could do things like promote recycling, and energy conservation. For instance, we got the College to put “Conserve Energy: Turn out the Lights” stickers on all the light switch plates. We were able to get people to carry their trash around and pile it up on the Green to demonstrate the amount of waste we each create. It was a very safe place to try a lot of things and learn what was an effective way to either influence people or promote changes in behavior. So it was kind of a laboratory for learning how to be an activist, how to listen to a diversity of opinions, and how to work with a bureaucracy to make things happen.

The academic coursework was obviously a key influence, and the Environmental Studies department, which didn’t yet have a major, but had a growing presence, was also key. And within that, going on the Kenyan Foreign Study Program was an important influence. It showed me how happy people can be with a lot less than what we live with, and the impact of international governments and international aid projects on local people - both how they can fail miserably and exploit local populations and how, when done well, can do good, too.

SS: You went to Forestry School. Why did you choose that path and what was your focus there?
KF: I went to forestry school right out of Dartmouth, and it was because I hadn’t had a science major at Dartmouth. I was a sociology and environmental studies major. At Dartmouth I worked with Professor Stanley Udy, who was from Maine, and I studied people and the landscape and how it influenced their opinions. I did a special project on development in Maine. As I went though Dartmouth, I took more biology classes and saw that I wanted to strengthen my own science background. So when I got into the Yale program, I decided that I wanted to do a full science curriculum.

Within that, I focused on water. Looking back, that was not a big surprise, because as a kid, I spent all my time in water. I taught swimming lessons and life guarded at the local lake. I have always loved water. So I did a program in hydrology and watershed management, looking at how water enters and moves through the landscape and the impact of trees and vegetation and forestry on that water cycle. Within that, I did a thesis on snow packing and looked at how ski area management affected snow packing and the influence on snow melt and runoff on stream conditions with the idea being that with more snow [from snowmaking], there would be more water running off the slope in the springtime, and that would that affect the shape and habitat conditions of the channel downstream. And in hindsight, what I see in the projects I chose to do was an interest in looking at industrial impacts on the landscape. I wanted to see what big business in Vermont was doing to high elevation mountain ecosystems which are inherently fragile. So that again brought together that interest in landscape, science and justice.

SS: I know that you’ve had several different roles since you graduated, so could you tell me broadly what you’ve done and why you took that path?
KF: My focus has not necessarily been in doing science, but in making science available and used in the policy process. I don’t consider myself a researcher or even a scientist per se. I see myself as someone who understands and translates science for public policy. That’s the thread that weaves through all of the jobs that I’ve had.

It started with my first position at the Appalachian Mountain Club, up in Pinkham Notch, in their research department. I was hired to develop the technical case for stream flow protection in hydropower dam re-licensing. At that time - around 1992 - there were dozens, if not hundreds, of hydropower dams up for re-licensing. And for the first time there was a need to look at the impacts of those dams …. That position was supported by the Switzer Foundation; I had received a Switzer Fellowship for my second year of graduate study, and through their leadership grant programs they fund positions with non profits to expand the capacity of nonprofits. That made it possible for me to take that job, and in fact it sort of created that job.

A couple years into that activist role, I felt that I was really missing an understanding of the regulatory world and how natural resources are regulated and managed by governments. I could see from working on hydropower dam re-licensing a complete disconnection between the requirements of people at state agencies and what the needs were in the environmental community. So I felt that for my own professional development it would be good to get in the regulatory world and learn it. A position had opened up with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation in their water quality division dealing with hydropower dams; I spent two years there, which gave me the time to understand both the position that state regulators are in and how the law works in terms of managing natural resources. And that was a very useful perspective for me in terms of how to apply science in a way that was actually helpful to a manager or state bureaucrat as opposed to coming from left field from the environmental prospective with no understanding of the context.

While I was working for Vermont, I unexpectedly got a call from Peter Stein, who was the chair of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation. They were looking for a Switzer Fellow specifically to take advantage of the Switzer funding to hire their first staff member. Of course, I knew all about Hubbard Brook from my time at Yale - it’s the premiere hydrologic station and experimental forest pretty much in the world; I jumped at the opportunity to work there. They hired me to conduct an analysis of whether or not Hubbard Brook could playa role in bringing more science into public policy, so for me it couldn’t be a more tailor-made position, because even though I might not have been able to articulate it at the time, it brought together all of my interests in water, in science and policy, and in understanding management.

After about four years with the Research Foundation, we decided to expand and convert my position to an executive director and hire more staff to grow the organization. So then I spent the remaining three or four years there learning how to direct a nonprofit organization. It is an entirely different set of skills, and a little bit off my primary strengths and abilities. I really enjoy being right on the front line, working directly with the scientists, directly with the policy makers, talking with the media, being right in the middle of the discussion, instead of managing people, managing budgets, raising funds, dealing with a board. To me those things are incredibly important, but they are not things that I feel I’m wired for.

SS: You left Hubbard Brook almost a year ago. What have you been doing since?
KF: A year ago I stepped down as the director after having returned for about three months after the birth of my son. I felt that a lot of other people could do my job at Hubbard Brook, but only I could be the mother to my son, and that I really wanted to spend more time in that phase. And I also recognized that with my divided energies, the organization probably wasn’t going to be able to take the steps and grow in the way it needed to.

So I stepped down as director and took a few months off and thought about what would be next, and from there I worked as a freelance consultant under my own shingles to see if there wasn’t a larger need beyond Hubbard Brook to bring together science and policy with a large number of groups. I maintained a consulting position within the Hubbard Brook research foundation implementing program activities and have since built a group of clients - all within research institutions - [and I work] translating and disseminating their scientific research into public policy.

I now work between 20 and 30 hours a week and that time is incredibly packed, with nonstop writing, researching and talking on the phone. For now, putting my family first is the right thing for me, but it has also forced me to be much more efficient with my time and more creative about the work I do.

Susanne Spencer ‘93 is a member of the Dartmouth Environmental Network and lives in Plainfield, NH.