At Conectiv Energy's Indian River Power Station in Delaware, giant cooling towers send clouds of steam billowing skyward. Inside the plant, four huge turbines whine in unison, their mammoth blades churning out 750 megawatts of electricity, as engineers study banks of consoles with brightly colored lights, alert for system problems. In the relative quiet of her office, plant maintenance manager Diane Black, AG '91, is on the phone with a building contractor. She puts him in contact with someone who will sell him fly ash, a plant waste product. The contractor wants several tons of it to use as a base on a road expansion project. Black figures it's a win-win situation.

"Selling the fly ash left behind by coal-burning turbines keeps it from getting into the air. Instead of being a pollutant, it provides clean fill and becomes a useful building tool," she says. "It's an environmentally responsible thing to do."

Black supervises a department that includes mechanics, electricians, instrument technicians, welders, planners and foremen. Leaving her office for a walk round the plant, she examines the operations logs for any problems that need to be factored into the work schedule. These are passed along to the mechanical foremen. She checks in with the electrical, operations and instrument foremen, giving them an update on any problems in their areas. Then, she says, she'll "fight fires" the remainder of the day.

Black entered UD's agricultural engineering program after meeting an engineer from Delmarva Power & Light Co., now Conectiv, at a high school career day program. The advice she received led to two summer internships at the power company, and after earning her degree in agricultural engineering technology with a minor in civil engineering, she started working at Conectiv.

Six years and an MBA later, Black took a financial administrator's job in 1999 at the Indian River plant. She and her husband, Christopher, AG '89, live in nearby Seaford.

"UD's agricultural engineering program is broad-based," she explains. "It's geared to agriculture, but relates to everything I do at Conectiv. I took electrical, structural and mechanical courses in the program, plus structural, hydraulic and wastewater treatment in my civil engineering minor. I use all this at Conectiv. The agricultural engineering major is really good. It applies well to many different processes at the plant."

Particularly helpful, Black found, were the courses she took with Prof. Ken Lomax, chairperson of the Department of Bioresources Engineering, especially the practical knowledge she gained in his class on project management.

Conectiv is in the process of selling the Indian River plant to NRG Energy of Minnesota, a transaction set to be completed soon. The sale shouldn't affect her or her depart