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Biography
EPA Deputy Administrator Alvin L. Alm
Son of a Swedish immigrant tailor, Al Alm grew up in 1950s Denver. Classically, Alm represents a first generation American rising through the ranks of government and business. Graduating from the University of Denver in 1960, Alm decided, on the advice of a faculty member, to attend the Maxwell Graduate School of Public Administration in Syracuse, New York. Upon graduating, he accepted a position with the Bureau of the Budget as a management intern, where he became involved in the budgeting process for pollution programs scattered throughout the bureaucracy.
In 1970, Alm drew the attention of Russell Train, who asked him to become his staff director at the newly created Council on Environmental Quality. Alm accepted the position, and within three years was asked by William Ruckelshaus, the first EPA Administrator, to become the Assistant Administrator for Planning and Management. Soon after Alm arrived at EPA, Ruckelshaus was asked to become FBI director, and Russell Train became EPA Administrator - renewing the relationship Alm developed with Train at CEQ.
At EPA, Alm oversaw the development of the effluent guideline process, the NPDES permit program, and the creation of financial safeguards for the construction grant program. He devoted attention to building a solid economic-analysis program at EPA, which enabled the agency to minimize the negative economic impact of its regulations.
By the middle 1970s, Alm found himself heavily involved in energy issues. EPA's environmental mandate received less public attention as a result of the rapid increase in energy prices resulting from the OPEC oil embargo of 1973/1974. He was invited to Camp David to help develop the Ford administration's energy policy. This experience, plus his management experience at CEQ and EPA, won him a spot in the Carter administration, first working with James Schlesinger on the Carter energy policy and then as an undersecretary at the newly created Department of Energy.
In 1979, Alm accepted the responsibility of managing Harvard University's energy security program. As an outsider, "ensconced" at Harvard, he watched EPA struggle through its rockiest times to date. When adverse media reports and congressional investigations forced Ronald Reagan's first EPA Administrator Ann Gorsuch to resign, William Ruckelshaus returned to stabilize the agency's credibility. Ruckelshaus tapped Al Alm to manage the daily affairs of the Agency as Deputy Administrator. Ruckelshaus and Alm served through the remainder of Reagan's first term and then both left the government for the business community. Alm became a senior vice president at Science Applications International Corporation, Inc. in McLean, VA.
Alm played an active role in facilitating the government's campaign to control environmental degradation. With his assistance the Federal government moved from having no effective pollution control system to having a fully functional end-of-pipe one. In so doing, Alm and his colleagues at EPA arrested the widespread degradation of the American environment and laid a foundation for future environmental progress. Alm's career in environmental matters, which he began in the 1960s at BoB, did not end at EPA. Not one to rest on his laurels, Alm outlined his vision for the future of environmental affairs:
" ...in recent years, I have seen the change to an entirely new set of paradigms: sustainable development; pollution prevention; use of nontraditional forms of environmental control, like market incentives and information; and integration of environmental concerns into policies across government agencies. We are seeing the change away from command and control, toward more flexible systems, and ultimately toward a decentralized system. It is hard to foresee this transition, but I think it is going to occur, and I would like to continue to be part of it.... "