Patricia D. Galloway (M.B.A. ’84) is president and CEO of Cle Elum, Wash.-based Pegasus Global Holdings, a global leader in risk management, prudence/performance auditing, dispute resolution, and strategic consulting for the energy, infrastructure, and transportation industries.
Galloway’s consulting work involves “megaprojects”—the $1 billion-plus jobs primarily associated with the energy, power, and infrastructure industries across more than 100 countries, including serving as chair of the Executive Review Panel of the $3.2 billion Seattle tunnel project with the largest tunnel-boring machine in the world, the Panama Canal, the Venice Lagoon Project, the London Crossrail Project, the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong, and the City Link Project in Melbourne, Australia. Her most recent project involved an audit of Duke Energy Indiana’s $3.2 billion Edwardsport power plant, the largest integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant in the world—a site where coal is transformed into a synthetic gas that offers cleaner, greener power.
She is also co-founder of the Patricia Galloway and Kris Nielsen Foundation, whose advisory board includes venture capitalists, financiers, and university research experts focused on 21st-century energy solutions. “We combine science, technology, and social management systems that improve the planet and sustainability,” Galloway says. “One project we developed was a mini-reactor that goes into cars and trucks to allow their engines to run on hydrogen.”
Galloway chose New York Tech for her M.B.A. because of the university’s experienced professors, course selections, and small class sizes. “When young women ask me how to advance their careers, my first answer is to get an M.B.A.,” she says. “It gives you a much broader perspective and is a necessary tool that people in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers don’t get anywhere else. My New York Tech degree keeps on giving.”
Galloway is committed to bringing more young women into STEM careers and serves as a role model for girls seeking guidance in these growing fields. She has already earned Glamour magazine’s Top Ten Women in Business Award, became the first woman president of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ in its 152- year history, and was appointed to the National Science Board in 2006 by President George W. Bush. Galloway believes that bringing more women into the STEM workforce will only benefit the process through which engineers formulate solutions. “Women think very differently than men,” Galloway says. “I don’t think that one is better than the other, but women think more broadly. They think about the social aspects more easily. Women offer an added perspective to solutions. If you take men and women in teams jointly and have both perspectives, the end result is better.” Galloway is also committed to improving engineers’ role in society with a focus on lifelong learning and how they can better incorporate global perspectives and technology to create more efficient solutions. “Engineers need to know more about the world from a cultural standpoint,” she says. “Everything we do today impacts more than one country.”
