A Dog’s Breakfast

Palmedo reflects on his upbringing, education, wide-ranging interests, and careers in this memoir.

The author grew up in Manhattan and Vermont as the youngest child of Roland, “a great father, somehow finding time to take [him] on all sorts of adventures,” and Elizabeth, “a positive, warm person whom everyone seemed to like.” Palmedo graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1952, where he had discovered physics, “something that revolutionized [his] understanding of the world.” At Williams College, he pursued a diversified liberal arts education, graduating in 1956 with the unusual double major of art history and physics. After attaining a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1962, the author and his wife Betsy lived in Paris for almost two years while he was a visiting scientist at the French national reactor physics lab. Returning to the United States, Palmedo joined Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island as a physicist, leading Brookhaven’s energy policy analysis program. In 1978, he left Brookhaven and launched Energy/Development International which grew into International Resources Group, a firm that consults with developing countries on energy issues including energy conservation, renewables, food security, and the protection of wildlife. Stepping away as CEO of IRG in 1988, the author became involved in stock trading and helped to establish the Long Island Research Institute. Returning to his art history background and his love of writing, Palmedo also authored books about artists and the creation and experience of art. Though he modestly ascribes much of his success to “the wonderful parents I had, the luxury that I was born into, and my extraordinary education,” his prodigious intellect and curiosity are evident in his writing. The author succinctly explains complex issues, from energy analysis to writing a business plan, in a way that allows readers with no background knowledge to grasp the basics. His gracious acknowledgements of mentors and colleagues, from teachers to nuclear scientists to book editors, are heartfelt. Readers will finish this book feeling they have made a new and fascinating friend.

A refreshingly humble account of a successful man’s life.