Though Provo native Bill Dalebout attended BYU for his undergraduate degree, it wasn’t until the economics student was in Washington, D.C., interning with microfinance organization FINCA International that he seriously considered BYU’s MPA program.
Part of his internship involved researching MPA programs for FINCA. “I was intrigued by BYU’s curriculum,” Dalebout says. “And there was an added bonus too. I liked interning for FINCA, and that organization had an interest in BYU MPA graduates.”
After starting the program in 2007 and subsequently returning to D.C. for an internship with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a year later, Dalebout graduated from the program with a finance emphasis in 2009. He was later offered a job and returned to work in the same office at the EPA. Although his original goal to work at FINCA changed, he was excited to return to a great agency.
In his current role as planning, evaluation, and performance measures coordinator for the agency’s Superfund Remediation program, Dalebout leads efforts to assure that performance metrics represent the program’s outputs and outcomes in a transparent and effective manner. The program seeks to clean up more than 1,600 of the nation’s largest hazardous waste sites.
The skills Dalebout developed in the MPA program have been instrumental to his success with the EPA. In 2012 Dalebout and a team of three other analysts were recognized at the annual Superfund awards banquet with the Teamwork Award for providing enhancement and innovation to the regional work planning process. He also recently received the Gold Medal for Exceptional Service for his contribution to the improvement of EPA land-remediation programs.
“When you’re working hard, getting recognized for your work is appreciated,” Dalebout says. “I attribute a lot of that award to skills I learned in the MPA program.”
Dalebout recently celebrated his third anniversary with the EPA and feels like he has a bright future at the agency.
“This job has been great for me because I enjoy what I do and there’s great growth potential,” he says. “Being involved in something that matters is very rewarding. It’s been all that I could ask for my first job out of the program.”
Dalebout and his wife, Amy, a 2010 BYU MPA graduate, live in Arlington, Virginia, where they share a passion for public service.
