GOVERNMENT NEWS
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Random Walk
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My Statistics Career in the
Federal Government
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recent letter to Amstat News from a student asked for more government was hiring mathematical statis-
information about careers in statistics. The student expressed ticians, so I applied. I was surprised to get
uncertainty about how one decides on a statistics career, how a call from someone at the USDA statisti-
one decides between pursuing employment after a master’s degree and cal unit (now the National Agricultural
pursuing further graduate work, and the responsibilities of a statisti- Statistics Service [NASS]) who wanted to
cian in the workplace. discuss employment. Recruiting at that
My career began with similar uncertainty before following a path time also was different from today. The
I could not have predicted, but enjoyed nonetheless. In ways, it has USDA had no budget to pay for trips to Ronald Fecso
been a “random walk” to my current position of chief statistician at Washington, DC, but they did offer me a
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). By highlight- job in their California field office. The deal was sealed! Still, I did
ing some of the people and situations along the way that contribut- not think of this random step as the beginning of my career in the
ed to my enjoyable statistics career, I hope you will agree a statistics federal government. I thought of it as a time to experience working
career in the federal government is one worth considering. before deciding on what to do next.
The idea of a “random walk” comes to mind as I think about my In the California office, I was given a number of assignments
career because my career decisions were made somewhat by chance. involving survey sampling, which played to my OR and statistical
I am struck by how there was far less information available before training and interests. For one assignment, I needed to create models
the internet. In particular, the search for career information was con- for tree-nut forecasts. These forecasts had been severely underesti-
strained by the number of employers attending recruiting events, the mating ever-increasing crops for 10 years. Working with industry
whim of whoever tacked job and graduate school ads to the depart- experts, I was able to identify new growing practices not measured in
ment bulletin boards, a few publications with summaries of employ- the data collection, as well as some needed data transformations. The
ers, and the interest and knowledge of one’s faculty and advisers. And next crop was a record by more than 30%—and my model estimated
though it used to take a long-distance call, you can now email any the crop within a percentage point.
employer with your questions. Another assignment was to develop a survey of lemon yield from
My random walk began with liking math from an early age. Not scratch, which included design, instruction, enumerator training,
really knowing what to do with that interest, I became a math major and code writing. The sense of accomplishment and clear apprecia-
at Rider University, where my interest in courses such as physics, tion conveyed by the lemon and walnut industry analysts hooked
economics, and operations research (OR) grew. I began leaning me. Incidentally, each of these assignments resulted in trade journal
toward OR as a career possibility. A probability and statistics course cover stories—another nudge do wn the path.
I took also seemed appealing and led me to look at graduate statistics The career path for NASS statisticians was through headquarters
departments with OR components. in DC, and there was a research group large enough to offer a variety
With my bachelor’s degree in hand, I headed north to the of experiences and advancement possibilities. I was eager to go. Little
University of Rochester’s statistics department. There, I took a did I realize NASS would provide 20 years of enjoyable research and
sampling course, not realizing that sampling would play a major learning experiences.
role in my career. I suppose my career moved in this direction The DC step began with examining nonresponse to NASS surveys
because I found sampling to be a combination of statistics and (e.g., using profile analysis to understand the opinions of nonrespon-
OR methodologies. dents). A large unit offers opportunities to learn from experienced
As I approached my master’s in mathematical statistics, several statisticians, as well as enough colleagues in your age cohort to create
faculty departures and my desire for more balance of OR and statis- after-work activities. (We played a lot of basketball and softball.)
tics led me to consider other options. While I was considering offers During my next assignment, I learned about record linkage and
from OR and industrial engineering programs, I took some time to led a small group that developed systems for efficient list updates.
talk with corporate recruiters and review information I came across Later, I became familiar with satellite imagery and used it to (1)
about federal government employment. improve stratification and selection methods for area frame sam-
pling and (2) facilitate remotely sensed estimates of crops in other
How I Entered the Federal Government
countries using a grid sampling frame of the globe. The area sam-
Frankly, in the 1970s, there wasn’t much information available pling experience provided opportunities for international travel and
to convince me to pursue a government statistics career. But, the consulting: building sampling frames in Guatemala, Tunisia, and
JULY 2008 AMSTAT NEWS 27
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