In Memoriam: Sally Hunt 1943-2010

In Memoriam: Sally Hunt 1943-2010

It is with great sadness that NERA says goodbye to Sally Streiter Hunt, an extraordinary woman who contributed a great deal to her field, her colleagues, and our company.

Sally spent 25 years of her 40-year consulting career with NERA, serving as a Vice President, member of the Board of Directors, and head of our Energy Group. She was instrumental in leading NERA’s work developing plans to privatize and introduce competition in electric power for the first time in the UK and other countries. Her work profoundly influenced the design and development of the electric power industry around the globe.

Sally was known and respected by energy ministers, senior executives, lawyers, bankers, regulators, grid operators, and plant managers. She used tact, intelligence, diplomacy, and her relentless energy to influence sector ownership, operation, and regulation in over 30 countries. Sally wrote the book not once but twice on the industrial organization of power systems. In this highly-politicized sector, she advised clients with fairness, integrity, and honesty.

Early in her career, Sally worked for the Budget Bureau of New York City under Mayor Lindsay. As a public servant, she was driven to improve the way the city worked. Her firm belief that, if she put her mind to it, she could solve problems and make the world a better place shaped her consulting career at NERA in the decades to follow. At NERA, her inquisitive and creative intellect met some of the greatest minds in economics. This environment provided fertile ground to cultivate the intellectual foundations for her future treatises on electric power.

In addition to being an outstanding thinker, Sally spent her life as a pioneer -- from attending Oxford University at a time when there were still quotas on the number of women students, to taking the ideas of electricity industry privatization and deregulation from audacious theories to workable reality.

We at NERA will miss not only Sally’s intellect, but also her cheerfulness, wit, and compassion. She was a wonderful colleague to us, and we extend our condolences and heart-felt best wishes to her beloved children and grandchildren.