Gus Speth

He was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1942 He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1964, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal, in 1969 He served in 1969 and 1970 as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Hugo L Black

Speth was a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he served as senior attorney from 1970 to 1977

He served from 1977 to 1981 as a Member and then for two years as Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President As Jimmy Carter's Council on Environmental Quality, he was a principal adviser on matters affecting the environment and had overall responsibility for developing and coordinating the President's environmental program In 1981 and 1982 he was Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching environmental and constitutional law

In 1982 he founded the World Resources Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank; served as its president until January 1993 He was a senior adviser to President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team, heading the group that examined the US's role in natural resources, energy and the environment

In 1991 he chaired a US task force on international development and environmental security which produced the report Partnership for Sustainable Development: A New US Agenda In 1990 he led the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development which produced the report Compact for a New World

From 1993 to 1999, he served as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme; he served as Special Coordinator for Economic and Social Affairs under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and also served as Chair of the United Nations Development Group

In 1999 he became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Currently he serves the school as the Carl W Knobloch, Jr Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy He announced he is retiring from Yale in 2009 and will assume a professorship at Vermont Law School in Royalton, Vermont[1]

Speth has been a leader or participant in many other task forces and committees aimed at combatting environmental degradation, including the President’s Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment

Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America’s Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Blue Planet Prize He holds honorary degrees from Clark University, the College of the Atlantic, the Vermont Law School, and Middlebury College