Helping move public policy forward

When Joe Muldoon stepped onto the stage to accept a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy from the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School in June 2015, it was the culmination of a long journey.

“It was the early 1990s, and I was working for the government in Regina. I had a bachelor of science and had taken a lot of training and professional development courses,” Joe says, “but I wanted more in-depth training on the management side, so I looked at a graduate degree.”

The Master of Business Administration program at the University of Regina appealed to Joe, but he was also intrigued by the university’s Master of Public Administration program (the precursor to Johnson Shoyama). He kept his options open and took core classes in both areas, graduating with an MBA in 1999.

“I was working full-time and raising a family, so I only took one class a time. The university was great in allowing me the flexibility and the timeframe to do that,” Joe says. “I enjoyed every class. I loved that it was applied learning I could take right back into the workplace.”

Joe’s public service career continued to evolve as he moved through his master’s program. He held a variety of positions with the provincial government, moving up the ranks to the director level. “Most of my jobs were in the environmental and resource areas, and I developed a strong interest in energy and climate change,” Joe says. “That’s what prompted me to get my PhD.”

In 2006, he was accepted into the Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy program at the University of Regina, which soon evolved into Johnson Shoyama. The program is designed to provide learning and research opportunities to advance knowledge and move the study of public policy forward. The school’s research capacity is focussed on three priority areas: social policy and inequality, governance, and innovation, science and technology policy. Joe’s thesis topic, the development and evolution of Saskatchewan’s uranium mining policy sector, fit into this last area.

Joe took a year-long leave from his job to focus on the research. “I looked at policy development right from the pre-war years when uranium was discovered in Saskatchewan all the way through to the present. And I loved it,” he says. “To me, there’s nothing more fun than winding your way through the work others have done, seeing what they thought over the years, and then applying your own perspectives to help move the issue another step forward.”

When Joe returned to government, he had a body of research that he needed to mold into a dissertation. He also had a new job, serving as assistant deputy minister (ADM) in the Ministry of Environment. Then in 2008, he changed career tracks and left executive government to assume the role of Vice President, Environment at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC).

“The position at the SRC came with a lot of responsibilities and challenges, so I put my dissertation on hold for several years while I focused solely on work,” Joe says. “I stayed connected with the faculty at Johnson Shoyama, but I was really appreciative of having the flexibility to be able to take care of my job first. Once I was able, I took another six-month leave and worked nine, ten hours a day, six days a week to finish my dissertation.”

Even for a man with a self-professed love of learning, completing and defending his PhD thesis was a big deal. “It was like having a big bell taken from around my neck,” he says.

His June 2015 convocation was a family affair. On the day Joe received his PhD, his oldest daughter was on the same stage receiving her Master of Administration from the University of Regina. And that fall, his youngest daughter successfully defended her Master of Environmental Toxicology thesis. “It was a special year,” Joe says. “I guess an appetite for education runs in the family.”

Today as Vice President, Environment for the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), Joe continues to use his experience and learning to help move public policy forward. “The ability to research and to understand research, to process and apply information—that’s what the SRC does. We operate as a business, so I apply my MBA skills. We are also a Treasury Board Crown corporation and what we do is influenced by policy, so I apply my PhD skills. The whole gamut of my education, from bachelor of science to MBA to PhD has been relevant.”

Right now, Joe is focussed primarily on Project CLEANS, the multi-year, multimillion-dollar project the SRC is managing to remediate Gunnar and Lorado Uranium Mine and Mill sites as well as 34 other mine sites in northern Saskatchewan.  Other areas within the Environment portfolio include air and climate monitoring, environmental performance and forestry, environmental life cycle analysis and a world class environmental analytical lab. 

 “I’ve always been interested in the energy mix and how we will manage that mix in the future. I don’t think there’s one single source that’s going to be the answer, I think it’s going to be a question of finding the best mix. I think nuclear is part of the mix, but there’s oil & gas, there’s solar, wind, ocean, geothermal and who knows what else will come forward next. The real challenge is how we store energy, how we direct it, where and when we need it, and how we do that in a sustainable fashion,” Joe says.

“My job keeps me hopping, but I would like to carve out time to lecture and teach—I miss learning in a formal setting,” Joe says. “And I’m still interested in the research side of the energy mix. There’s not enough hours in the day for all I want to do.”