The stated goal of the U.S. Global Development Lab is nothing less than the eradication of extreme global poverty in 14 years.
It's either impossible or just the sort of world-changing project Harry Bader is cut out to be working on next.
Bader, 53, a former Fairbanksan with a long string of achievements to his credit, began work this week as the deputy executive director of the global lab in Washington, D.C.
Bader and his wife, Patsy, who has a strong background in international humanitarian work, are the parents of 4-year-old twins and a toddler. They met while both were working in Tajikistan, which is north of Afghanistan.
Bader's new job is to serve in essence as operations officer for the lab, a two-year-old federal entity that is the newest bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the lead agency fighting global poverty and working to build resilient democratic societies.
The lab is led by Executive Director Ann Mei Chang, a former Google executive who says innovations in science and technology and forging partnerships are the keys to easing the suffering of 700 million people forced to live on less than $2 a day.
While Bader's experience overseas in more than a dozen nations on humanitarian and natural resource management projects has no doubt helped strengthen his skills, he says no institution has prepared him for this latest assignment as much as the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
In an interview last week before he left his job at UAF, he reflected on the nature of the school and its unique and quirky character. One of its most valuable traits, he said, is it encourages faculty members and researchers to use an interdisciplinary approach and discover unexpected connections.
As Bader puts it, he has tended to "bounce around" during his career, with repeated stints at UAF.
He began teaching natural resources management at UAF in 1988, not long after earning a law degree from Harvard. Off and on over the last 14 years while holding down other jobs, he worked on a doctorate at the Yale School of Forestry. He hopes to finish that degree this year with an analysis on the impact on permafrost from off-road seismic exploration in winter on the North Slope.
During his varied career, he took time off to try living in a remote cabin along the Yukon River, an experience he describes as a "miserable failure." He barely escaped execution while investigating atrocities in the Bosnian countryside and traveled throughout eastern Afghanistan, investigating timber smuggling and ways to prevent insurgents from getting access to natural resources.
In Alaska, in addition to his work at UAF, he served as a regional manager for the state Department of Natural Resources.
For his service in Afghanistan, he won a heroism award from USAID. He was embedded with U.S. troops and made 58 missions "outside the wire" with military patrols.
Bader said what he hopes is not lost in the current environment of budget cuts is that UAF has fostered connections and undertakings that could have a ready application elsewhere.
"I hope with these fiscal constraints that we do not become more conventional," he said.
As for ending extreme poverty, he said, the search for solutions that work in Alaska's remote communities on health, energy, transportation and economic development can be applied to many parts of the world.
"No other U.S. academic institution is quite so directly relevant in its research to further development in the Third World," he said. "We can also be, and already are, the beacon of development research for the developing world."
Dermot Cole is a columnist for the Alaska Dispatch News who lives in Fairbanks. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.