Mead Project - Elder Research
Authors: Valeria Urresty and Andy Liang
Earlier this February, Professor Tong, her colleague Professor Schmidt, and eight students with the Mead Project had the great opportunity to visit Elder Research — a consulting firm providing solutions using tools in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence — in their Charlottesville office. Our tour was led by the founder of the company himself, Dr. John Elder!
Dr. John Elder started Elder Research in 1995. Over the last 29 years, Elder Research has grown to a team of over 140 data scientists, engineers, and support staff at four different offices in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, and its headquarters is in Charlottesville. As a consulting firm, Elder Research assists clients through its expertise in data analytics and computational tools to help clients make decisions and improve performance. Performing data analysis requires a great deal of time, money, and knowledge, which many businesses and organizations cannot access themselves. With the services and expertise available at Elder Research, clients save money and resources on performing data analysis themselves and gain valuable insights on how to improve their operations. Hundreds of clients, such as Capital One, Allstate, and Pfizer, from all sorts of different industries, including finance, government, and healthcare, benefit from Elder Research’s services. Dr. Elder recalls one interesting case. A firm had the challenging task of predicting when natural gas wells would “freeze,” which would reduce overall gas production and require costly fixes. The firm wanted to know which wells were at risk of freezing to take preventative measures and save money. Elder Research used a vast set of sensor data, reports, and records to build a model that was capable of predicting the well freezing months in advance 3 times better than any of the client’s past attempts. The model was able to save the client millions of dollars annually from intervention costs.
During the visit, Elder Research arranged for us to hear from several of its representatives, who really embodied their slogan, “Data driven. People centered.”
Dr. Elder emphasizes that the ability to talk to people and to work well with clients is perhaps more valuable than any technical skill at Elder Research. Stories from his colleagues reinforced to us that, indeed, the ability to work well with people – so called “soft skills” -- are greatly important, and maybe arguably more important than learning a new programming language, or software tool, or earning some certification. We often focus on gaining new knowledge and honing our technical capabilities in school and work, but often the most successful people are not those with the most knowledge or the greatest technical ability, but those who can empathize with other people and can work with them well.
John Elder
As the founder of Elder Research, John Elder emphasized the immense value of nurturing strong connections with clients. He believes complete honesty and transparency are essential for clients to trust your guidance. Even if the truth is complicated or not what a client wants to hear, they will respect authenticity rather than telling them what they wish were true.
Dr. Elder described himself as an energetic extrovert, qualities that enable him to actively engage with clients and get them excited about potential data-driven innovations. His outgoing personality combined with analytical prowess make him an ideal face for the company.
He explained that Elder Research purposefully avoids portraying themselves as omniscient data experts with all the answers. They position their services as a collaborative partnership, where clients and consultants work together to find solutions. This empowers clients rather than placing them in a passive role, receiving decrees from an intimidating black box algorithm. It also enables Elder Research to enhance engagement with each client over longer time horizons, becoming trusted advisors rather than one-off transactional vendors.
Dr. Elder believes the key to Elder Research's success is combining compassion for client needs with intellectual curiosity about their operations, then translating analytical insights into language they can understand and act upon. They strive to build real relationships, not just grab quick profits. This client-centric philosophy earns loyalty and repeat business that sustains the company. As Dr. Elder says, the quality of their people and connections matters just as much as the most advanced analytics methods. Client relationships built on authenticity and lifetime learning fuel their ongoing impact.
Lisa Targonski
Lisa Targonski described herself as an introvert, which can be an asset at a company like Elder Research with many outgoing personalities. While extroverts shine at collaboration and big picture ideas, introverts tend to be better listeners and can rein in wandering conversations. Lisa embraces her tendency to set deadlines and keep projects on track.
At Elder Research, the culture celebrates exploration – data scientists are encouraged to try multiple models and approaches when tackling a client issue. However, perfectionists sometimes struggle to know when to stop analyzing and start delivering actual solutions. As a senior leader, Lisa intervenes at critical junctures, helping teams balance open-ended discovery with pragmatic timeframes.
Importantly, the environment is not competitive to the point where team members are afraid to help each other out. Instead, everyone works together to find the best solutions and see their colleagues also grow and improve. It is a haven compared to a toxic work environment where the bottom 10% of employees are cut on an interval, as Dr. Elder recalls. On Fridays, Elder Research even features workshops with speakers where employees can enjoy themselves and learn about fascinating topics. As Lisa said, a healthy working culture enables them to achieve more together than any one individual could accomplish on their own.
She reminds them that their role is not necessarily to completely solve each client dilemma, but to provide the best improvement possible within the contracted timeframe. Even incremental progress saves clients significant time and money compared to handling analytics internally. Lisa credits her multifaceted career with helping her synthesize different viewpoints. Ultimately, her blended introvert-extrovert skills equip her to keep projects focused yet flexible at Elder Research. An introspective, deadline-oriented approach prevents teams from getting either distracted by too many possibilities or too-focused on seeking theoretical perfection at the cost of real-world application.
Evan Wimpey
Evan Wimpey, a data scientist, is an excellent example of the enthusiastic and great people who work at Elder Research. What one is likely to notice first about Evan is that he is always smiling. With a great sense of humor, Evan is the author of the book “Predictable Jokes: 101 Data-Driven Laughs for those in Analytics, Machine Learning, and AI.” We see again with Evan as an example that it is immensely important to not only have technical knowledge, but also the ability to work with a team. Anyone would love to work with someone like Evan with his great sense of humor and expertise. No one could dislike him. He brings enthusiasm to colleagues and to clients, which is perhaps an ability that we should all seek to attain.
Two comedians can tell the same joke, yet one can win more laughs from the crowd than the other. The difference is in the delivery. One presents it in a more entertaining way, with more enthusiasm, or more personality. In the same way, two people can have the same knowledge, yet one may produce much better results, because one may have a more appealing attitude, more enthusiasm, or a greater affinity for people. We should remember that the ultimate purpose of having knowledge and technical skill is often to share it and to be of service to someone else, which is particularly the true in consulting, as we have seen. To that end, we should not only acquire technical knowledge and skill, but to learn how to better present it in a compelling way.
Siobhan Kent
Siobhan Kent, an HR professional, discussed how resumes do not need to be extensively personalized for each application. Businesses can often tell when applicants simply swap out a few words to match the company name. However, they do not automatically discard longer, over 2-page resumes. Instead, they look for hints at the person beyond the skillset - what makes someone unique and whether they would be a good culture fit. For example, in hiring, they seek people willing to actively engage with the community they build at Elder Research, not just conduct studies and be really good at the job.
This emphasis on soft skills aligned with what we learned on our visit to Elder Research, a data science consulting firm working with top companies like Capital One and Pfizer. As founder Dr. John Elder explained, effectively communicating with clients is as important as technical expertise. Building a model may be only 25% of the process, while understanding client needs makes up the other 75%. We saw how Elder Research uses data to solve concrete problems, like saving taxpayers billions by uncovering fraud against government agencies. Ultimately, however, Dr. Elder attributes his success to connecting with people. Technical skills can be learned, but emotional intelligence is what sets apart leaders in any field. Both Siobhan and John stressed that resumes and interviews should convey personality and fit - what makes candidates effective team players and community members.
With that, we concluded our visit to Elder Research. It was very exciting for all of us students to get an inside look at the data science consulting world and meet inspiring leaders like Dr. John Elder. We gained valuable perspective on blending technical prowess with emotional intelligence when working with clients. The emphasis was not solely on building the perfect predictive algorithm, but on understanding human needs then translating analytics into tangible solutions. Their culture demonstrated the importance of maintaining a healthy, collaborative team environment where people are not afraid to help each other learn and grow. We hope you enjoyed reading our reflections and look forward to sharing future learning experiences!