On one of the summer’s many cruel triple-digit-degree days, Ann Bluntzer and I met at Pappadeauxs in the Mid-cities for lunch. Familiar with the menu, the executive director of Texas Christian University’s Ralph Lowe Energy Institute recommended the Chop Salad with salmon. We agree to go for it, and I add in an extra twist—piles of fried crawfish. Between bites, Bluntzer shared her recent work and industry trends.
Her global background as a former foreign service officer based in Jakarta, Indonesia, was an impetus for the launch of TCU’s energy-focused MBA in 2012, a rare offering among universities. Ten years later, the program’s graduates have significant leadership roles in the industry. Before TCU, Bluntzer worked with The Nature Conservancy Land Trust in South Carolina and was executive director for nearby Beaufort County. With her knowledge of land rights and economic development, she saw more fluid options for land use relative to her environmentalist contemporaries.
Each year, Bluntzer debates where to take students to study abroad—Europe or places more focused on mining, such as West Africa or Australia. Europe, she notes, serves as a great example of what not to do for students. “[European] decisions are pushed politically and emotionally, not necessarily out of security and economics,” Bluntzer says. “Reflecting on the plane ride home, students are shocked by how far ahead the U.S. is in its ability to approach a deregulated market for energy, better than most developed nations.”
But Bluntzer acknowledges the key role Europe plays in geopolitics and energy. “The heart of the geopolitical arguments that shape global policy usually start in Brussels,” she relays. “Economically, the China-India-America story is a bigger impact, but intellectually, the international policy buffs point to Europe.”
Recently, she took a group of TCU grad students across Europe, with their final leg in Bulgaria. “You have imports and exports coming from the Mediterranean and Greece, and these Eastern European countries in the middle,” she noted. Specifically, the group was analyzing how these countries are relieving reliance on Russian gas. To support a growing liquified natural gas trade, they witnessed a fast-tracked pipeline being dug firsthand, starting at Hungary’s southern border and ending at Mediterranean ports.
In addition to her role at the Energy Institute, Bluntzer is a full-time faculty member at TCU’s Neeley School of Business. She expresses some concern about small numbers in the energy industry and in the classroom. “We have a human capital crisis in the oil and gas industry, both on the renewable side and hydrocarbon side,” Bluntzer says. In 2012, when she was first working with the Institute, there were 400 students minoring in energy. Now, there are 80. “I hear the tone from students and the effect of misinformation, the storyline,” she adds.
So, Bluntzer sits on panels and gives outreach speeches, hoping to raise awareness for the impact a career in energy could create and help numbers continue to climb. “This career path is one that is helping move societies forward,” she says.
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