Dr. Steven Zornetzer is an impressive leader. His past leadership roles include Associate Center Director for Research and Technology at NASA where he directed all research and technology development at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Before that he was a Director of Life and Biomedical Sciences for the Office of Naval Research.
More recently Dr. Zornetzer’ s attention has turned to the challenge of global climate change. He is involved in several efforts including Secure the Future 2100, the Arctic Ice Project and even contributes at the municipal level to decarbonize his city Sunnyvale CA.
Dr. Zornetzer is an Enneagram Type 3 who is increasingly tapping into his feelings to guide the direction of his leadership and efforts. Type 3s typically suppress their feelings, a trait that would have served him well in technology and scientific research roles. However, in times of climate crisis, human emotions increasingly come into play during problem solving. Dr. Zornetzer shares his leadership journey and how emotions now play a more important role.
Find Dr. Zornetzer here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-steven-zornetzer-3981548a/
Secure the Future 2100: https://securethefuture2100.org/
Arctic Ice Project: https://www.arcticiceproject.org/
#Leadership #Commitment #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #climatechange
[Video Transcript]
Matt Schlegel:
Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are engaging with their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. Today, I’m speaking with Dr. Steven Zornetzer, an extraordinary science and technology leader with a distinguished career with NASA and Office of Naval Research. Dr. Zornetzer now focuses his remarkable talents on efforts to slow the impact of climate change. And now for the conversation.
Matt Schlegel:
My guest today is Dr. Steven Zornetzer. Dr. Zornetzer is an impressive leader. His past leadership roles include associate center director for research and technology at NASA, where he directed all research and technology development at Ames research center. Before that he was director of life and biomedical sciences for the Office of Naval Research. More recently, Dr. Zornetzer’s attention has turned to the challenge of global climate change. He’s involved in a number of efforts, including Secure The Future 2100, the Arctic Ice Project, and even contributes at the municipal level to decarbonize his city of Sunnyvale, California. I’m so eager to hear about his leadership journey into addressing the climate crisis. Thank you for joining me today.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Thank you, Matt. Delightful to be here.
Matt Schlegel:
Yeah. And so why don’t we start off by just checking in and seeing how you’re feeling now about climate change.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
I’m feeling energized, motivated, and frightened.
Matt Schlegel:
Yes. It’s remarkable how so many of us, as we think about this, we have a number of different feelings, and how we move through those different feelings, even during the course of the day. Which feelings are driving most of the energy for you, would you say?
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
I think about my grandchildren. I think about the kind of lives they’re embarking on, and how the lives that we’ve known in our youth and throughout our lives, how different their lives are going to be. And certainly, not in a better way, but in a very degraded way. They’re going to experience, if not directly and personally through the news and through day to day life and everything that they observe, they’re going to experience hunger around them. They’re going to experience more disease. They’re going to experience more poverty. They’re going to experience hellacious weather events, droughts, and fires, and freakish storms, and who knows what else. The IPCC, this international organization that the United Nations has chartered over the past decade or more to study climate change and make predictions, they came out just most recently with something they call the atlas of human suffering. And they project, over the next many decades for the rest of this century, they project the kind of degraded life that humans will experience on our planet because of humans.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
So this is what motivates me, is the kind of life my grandchildren are going to lead in. And what I say to myself is, what can I do? What minor teeny little legacy can I leave that will try to make their lives just a little bit better?
Matt Schlegel:
Right. Right. Well, that’s amazing. And it’s remarkable how just the contrast that we are going to see in our lives as, as you put it, the world starts to degrade, the environment starts to degrade, the climate starts to degrade, and how that’s going to impact everybody. And we’ve already started experiencing it, and we’re going to just see that continue. So yeah, it’s going to be very devastating. So how are these feelings that you’re having and your thoughts about the future of your children and grandchildren, how are they influencing your direction and behaviors as a leader today?
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Yeah. So when I retired from NASA about four years ago, I wasn’t planning to spend my retirement largely dedicated to these nonprofits that I’m working with. But it occurred to me, as I began to learn more and happenstance, things happen, you meet people, you start talking to people, you learn more things. And all of a sudden, I realized that there’s nothing more interesting and or important that I could be doing while I’m still [inaudible 00:06:03] and I still have enough energy to perhaps make a difference. There’s nothing more important that I could be doing that would be fulfilling for me than devoting myself to trying to educate people and do what I can to try to slow down the rate of climate change, buying more time for humanity to get off a carbon economy.
Matt Schlegel:
Right. So well said. It’s hard to imagine of a bigger problem, a bigger challenge to work on than the climate challenge. And you’re a lifelong problem solver. So what better problem to sink your teeth into now than one that requires you to join and demonstrate your leadership? I think ultimately all of us have to become climate leaders. So I really appreciate you stepping into that and realizing that. That’s amazing. So thank you for doing that. And so what advice then would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders who are starting to have feelings about climate change and the future of their family and their children?
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Well, that’s a very good question. For people who believe that they do have leadership potential or true leadership ability, just get engaged, get involved. There’s no dearth of opportunities out there to participate in, even if it’s nothing more talking to your neighbors in terms of, well, are you recycling? Are you recycling properly? Are you conserving water? Are you driving an electric car? What’s your next car going to be? Have you considered an electric car? There’s just little things you can do. Then there’s bigger things you can do. You can get involved in your community.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
I got involved at the Sunnyvale Sustainability Commission even before I retired from NASA. And I found it eyeopening. How much can be done at the local level to mitigate some of the causes that are contributing to climate change, whether it be better electrification, incentives for changing out your furnace for a heat pump? Little things that people can do that make a difference when they’re aggregated, and certainly at the community level, even a small town like Sunnyvale.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Get involved. Use some of your passion and some of your energy and focus it on what is the existential question of our time and existential problem of our time. There is no bigger problem right now, frankly. And if you care about your children and your grandchildren and the kind of lives they’re going to lead, now’s the time to act because we have a very small window here where we can make a difference because just a few tens of a degree Celsius increase in temperature on the planet may very well result in irreversible changes that, in our lifetime, certainly never be able to reverse.
Matt Schlegel:
Right. Right. Time is of the essence. Just a couple of comments. So I really appreciate how you are describing that there’s endless opportunities for people who are inclined to demonstrate their leadership skills, and hone and practice their leadership skills. And you can plug in at any level your neighbors, your neighborhood, your city. You are remarkable in your experiences, that you’ve gone all the way from your neighborhood all the way up to the global level. You’re highlighting that we can start anywhere. We can start right where we are today to demonstrate leadership. And that’s so important. And thank you for highlighting that.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
So you were asking, what advice would I give to other aspiring leaders? And I’ll recount a personal experience that actually put me on the pathway that I’m still on with respect to climate change, and global warming, and doing something that can make a difference. So this was back many years ago, 2008, when I was at NASA. And NASA Ames had won a competition within the larger NASA for the next new building within the agency. And that building was going to be built at NASA Ames. And I went to a briefing about the design of that new building and what they were planning to do to build this new building at Ames.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
So I was sitting in the audience and I was listening to the plans, and I was so completely underwhelmed by the lack of imagination, the lack of boldness with respect to this new building. I was sitting here in the 21st century, in the heart of Silicon Valley, this is NASA, and they’re building this ugly, rectangular building that could have been built in 1960, that had conventional heating and air conditioning, nothing imaginative or bold, or even responsive to the growing notion about climate change and what we can do, what we should do.
Matt Schlegel:
And what year was this again?
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
2008.
Matt Schlegel:
Eight. Okay.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
So I was getting more and more frustrated as I was sitting in the audience. At one point, and this was so unlike me, I simply stood up and I said, “Excuse me,” and I raised my hand. Everybody knows who I am. I have a prominent leadership position in Ames, but I had nothing to do with roads, and commodes, and buildings, and that stuff. I was dealing with research and technology. But I said to them, “This is absolutely the wrong building to build, and we’re not going to build this building.” Now, I had no authorities to say that, but I said, “We’re not going to build this building. We’re going to build the greenest building in the federal government. That’s what we should do.”
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
And I just said that, and everybody looked at me and like, are you crazy? How are you going to do that? And some people clapped. So I went back to the director and I told them this same experience. And he said, “You’re exactly right. Let’s build the greenest building we can possibly build.” And NASA headquarters, which gave us a budget and gave us a schedule to do this building said, “You guys can’t do that. No. We’re going to build the building we’ve already started to plan.” And we said, “No. We’re going to build the greenest building in the federal government.” Well, we did. I led that project, and that’s what got me started.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Now, that was a very audacious thing to do. It was completely out of character for me to do that, but I was so frustrated by little think, and we really needed to do big think. And so that’s what we did. And for years, it was the greenest building in the federal government. It was lead platinum certified. It’s still a showcase building. We called it sustainability base. We incorporated aerospace technologies into this building. It was one of the very first smart buildings that used AI and other technologies to manage itself. It was carbon neutral, actually generated energy, not only for itself, but for the rest of the campus. It was a phenomenal building. And it just started with a sense of frustration. And so that’s what I say to aspiring leaders, be audacious, get out there, and do something.
Matt Schlegel:
Yeah. Yeah. And the other, other thing that comes to mind about this experience is if you don’t bring it up, nobody else is going to bring it up. And so if you are feeling that you should be thinking about climate change, and we could be doing more, and nobody’s talking about it, believe me, people are thinking about it, but people just need to have somebody stand up and say it. Everybody’s thinking it. So just stand up and say it, just like you did. Just show that leadership, and people will follow you because people want to follow. Thank you so much for sharing that story. It’s so great.
Matt Schlegel:
Well, I know we could continue this conversation for a long time, and I really appreciate everything you are doing. And I do hope that as we move forward and you continue to make progress in your many efforts, that you can come back and share some of your insights, and offer more advice to leaders who are moving into the climate world.
Dr. Steven Zornetzer:
Thank you, Matt.
Matt Schlegel:
All right. Thank you.
Matt Schlegel:
Thanks for watching. I love how Dr. Zornetzer now focuses his energy on efforts to solve the climate crisis. He highlights how we can demonstrate leadership wherever we are with our friends, family, in our neighborhood, at work. He showed how people want to start taking action, but hesitate until someone starts the conversation. So just start the conversation. And if you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button, and subscribe to the channel to get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section, and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.
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