Peoplewatch

Brownlee ’75 Promotes Science Education

When one hears “Texas,” one usually thinks oil or cattle, yet Texas is one of the largest mining states in the country. Diane Brownlee BSc Geop ’75 has taken on the task of educating the state’s youngsters about their natural resources and encouraging an interest in the natural sciences.

Seven years ago, Brownlee began volunteering at the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary in McKinney, Texas, teaching earth sciences to children.

“I started by looking over the Heard’s rock and mineral assets, which hadn’t been reviewed for 10 years. I sold the duplicates and then put together a huge collection of fossils, rocks and minerals to use in outreach programs,” Brownlee explains. She designed a program using other volunteers from the community who had expertise in areas she didn’t. There are eight lectures and eight laboratories, which she takes to the schools, teaching children from second through 12^th grades. “Last year we talked to 3,700 children,” she says. “I work very hard to teach an integrated science curriculum using a problem-solving approach. We show how different disciplines interact to solve problems.”

Brownlee, now adjunct curator of earth science at the Heard, gets help from local amateurs who donate rocks and minerals so that every child who participates receives a free sample.

“People call and give me all kinds of things,” Brownlee reports. Once a year, the Heard holds a sale of things they can’t use and the money goes into the Heard’s general fund. Last year, more than 500 people attended the sale and in one day, the Heard raised $5,000.

The Heard has entered into a partnership with two area elementary schools to study erosion on their school grounds. Students became interested in erosion during a third-grade watershed workshop conducted by Brownlee. Among the many questions asked at program’s end was “Why do we have a muddy playground?” 

“We’ve undertaken to actually restructure the watershed in that area,” says Brownlee. “All grades are participating.” Brownlee also helped the schools bring in restoration and watershed experts to review student projects.

City officials have delayed development of the park adjoining one elementary school campus until students present their ideas on how to accomplish watershed improvement and environmental preservation.

Brownlee has also inspired mining companies to become involved in education. Last year, people from the mining industry helped fund four successful career days in middle schools in underprivileged areas. Brownlee also got local mining companies to donate 15,000 pounds of rock from west and southwest Texas to be made into an outdoor laboratory.

Everyone wins when industry becomes involved in encouraging children and adults to appreciate and understand the natural world, Brownlee says.

Brownlee lives with her husband Keith BSc Geop ’75 and their son and daughter in Dallas. Keith is president of Stoneham Oil & Gas Co.

Tyler '87 Assigned to Pentagon

Cecilia K. Tyler MSc Min Ec (Operations Research/Systems Analysis) ’87 was promoted recently to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and assigned to the Pentagon to work in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics as assistant director, Coalition Warfare.

Tyler’s area of expertise is defense armaments cooperation, working research and development projects (approximately $10 million annually) that address current issues with coalition partners.

“I work with our allies and ‘friendly nations’ to determine what interoperability issues there are,” she explains.

Interoperability issues include doctrine, policy, training, organizational structure and equipment of each country’s defense and peacekeeping effort. “I’m looking at current interoperability problems between the U.S. and our coalition partners based upon recent interactions, such as we experienced in the peacekeeping actions in Bosnia and Kosovo.”

To train for her new position, Tyler earned a master’s of science degree in national resource strategy with a concentration in information strategies from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF), National Defense University.

The mission of ICAF is to prepare selected military officers like Tyler, and senior civilians, for high-level leadership and staff positions dealing with the resource component of national power. Her studies and associated research revolved around the President of the United State’s national security strategy and the four elements of national power—political, economic, information (media, intelligence) and military—and when to use them.

The resource component of the four elements of national power emphasizes materiel acquisition and joint logistics, and their integration into the national security strategy for peace and war. Tyler says her training gave her a good understanding of the strategic level of thinking.

Her education at Mines also has been useful throughout her career, which has included a variety of important command and staff positions, Tyler says. “Dr. Woolsey [director of the Operations Research Program] showed me how to apply theory to actual problems. I got to see just how to use mathematical models to formulate statistical data and how to use the data you have to figure out the most efficient method to use the resources you have.”

For example, while working the downsizing of U.S. Army forces in Europe, Tyler developed an operational plan and execution timeline for the shutdown and dismantling of major communication systems prior to Army bases being returned to the German and Italian governments. Her plan maintained critical communications links, yet allowed the commander-in-chief, U.S. Army Europe, to meet base closure deadlines set by the government.

Military service is a family affair, as Tyler’s husband Gene is also a U.S. Army Signal Corps colonel, and their daughter, Lisa Northup, is a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Corps.