Where Better Questions Lead

What Alvarado Benson encountered wasn’t simply a different way of thinking about energy. It was a different way of thinking about complex problems.

“It was his way of thinking and communicating. Instead of asking, ‘How do we produce more energy?’ he would ask, ‘Why do we need the energy in the first place?’ That shift seems simple, but it changes everything,” she says. “That shift in how to think about complex problems has shaped every chapter of my life ever since.”

Rather than focusing on optimizing existing systems, Alvarado Benson found herself drawn toward helping shape them from the beginning.

“I found myself increasingly drawn upstream, toward the places where the questions themselves were being framed — where assumptions could be challenged, needs better understood, and design choices made before they became constraints. Looking back, nearly every transition in my career was a move in that direction.”

And one habit became a constant. “I learned to keep asking ‘why.’ Not just once, but repeatedly, because the first answer is often someone’s stated objective, not their actual need.”

Alvarado Benson laughs that repeatedly asking “why” may not always have made her the easiest colleague. But she kept doing it because she found it was often the fastest way to uncover the real problem — and ultimately, the best solutions.

As her career evolved — from environmental engineering to data science and artificial intelligence in support of several different industries — Alvarado Benson found herself applying the same systems-thinking approach in every field. When she later taught college courses in statistics, predictive modeling, data analysis, and optimization, she introduced her students to RMI’s ideas alongside the curriculum.

“I assigned Amory’s and RMI readings because they invited students to think differently — not just about energy, but about problem-solving itself. They modeled that good analysis can be creative, that efficiency can be elegant, and that large systems can be redesigned rather than merely endured. I never shared out of advocacy in any formal sense, but because RMI’s work consistently enlarged the conversations being had by many different kinds of industry professionals.”

For more than 25 years, she introduced generations of students to the same systems-thinking approach that had shaped her career.

Looking back, Alvarado Benson sees those ideas as reflecting something deeper.

“What drew me to RMI in the formative phases of my career still resonates with me today: a rigor that is imaginative, a systems view that is practical, and an optimism grounded in analysis and moral imagination.”

And those ideas didn’t stay at work. They became part of the way Alvarado Benson raised her children and thought about the world at home.

“[It] became part of our family’s vocabulary. We often say, ‘Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.’ To me, that’s moral imagination in everyday language.”

Years after first discovering RMI’s work, Alvarado Benson and her husband faced a different kind of question: what values did they want their estate plans to reflect?

For Alvarado Benson , the answer brough her back to where the journey began.

“That is also why giving to RMI feels deeply personal. It is, in part, an act of gratitude for an institution whose ideas shaped how I think, taught, and practice. But it is also a way of supporting a rare organization that has, over decades, held together a dream grounded in analytical seriousness, practical innovation, and a long view of what a more resilient future can look like.”

When Alvarado Benson and her husband began their estate planning, they chose to include RMI in their plans, helping ensure the ideas that transformed her life can continue shaping future generations.

“To me, legacy giving isn’t about being remembered. It’s about helping good ideas outlive us.”

More than thirty years after first reading Amory’s essay, Alvarado Benson doesn’t think of herself simply as a donor to RMI.

“If I have helped spread some of those ideas forward through students and colleagues, it is because RMI helped plant them in our world first. Supporting the Institute feels less like philanthropy than participating in a long conversation I have been fortunate to learn from for most of my 30-plus year professional life.”