CRRA CONFERENCE
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

HUEY D. JOHNSON

Huey D. Johnson is president of the Resource Renewal Institute (RRI), a nonprofit organization he founded in 1983 to support total environmental recovery through innovative environmental management in the United States and worldwide. RRI's promotes the implementation of green plans-long-term, comprehensive strategies for achieving environmental sustainability and economic prosperity. Headquartered in San Francisco California, RRI also maintains an office in Albany, New York.

Mr. Johnson's work history is based on the fact that in a free society one can take environmentally relevant ideas and establish them as working organizations. Organizations he has founded include: RRI, The Trust for Public Land (TPL), the Grand Canyon Trust, the Environmental Liaison Center in Nairobi, Defense of Place and the Aldo Leopold Society.

In 1963 Mr. Johnson was appointed Western Regional Director of The Nature Conservancy - the organization's only employee west of the Mississippi River. During his tenure there he was responsible for more than 50 projects, including the preservation of Hawaii's Seven Sacred Pools. In 1972 Mr. Johnson founded The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a nonprofit land acquisition corporation, and served as its president until 1977. TPL is now the fifth largest environmental organization in the United States.

>From 1978 to 1982, Mr. Johnson served as California's Secretary for Resources in Governor Jerry Brown's cabinet. During that time he was responsible for creating and implementing one of the first comprehensive approaches to resource management, the 20-year "Investing for Prosperity" (IFP) program. IFP saved billions of dollars and created jobs by investing in the restoration and maintenance of California's renewable resources.

Mr. Johnson is the author of Green Plans: Greenprint for Sustainability (University of Nebraska Press, 1995), which provides the first detailed examination of the theory, implementation, and performance of green plans in the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada.