JONATHAN LASH

I am a former Peace Corps volunteer, federal prosecutor, and environmental litigator. I have served as Vermont Secretary of Natural Resources, a law professor, and president of a college.

Sixty-some years ago I convinced my parents to let me follow my siblings to the Putney School, and extraordinary place on a hill in Southern Vermont. It changed my life. I learned that I could figure things out: whether it was how to build a rope-tow up Water Tower Hill; or why calves needed attention before dawn; or why Lear fell for the filial falsehoods of Goneril and Regan. That sense of possibility has sustained me ever since.

For a decade-and-a-half, I was the president of the World Resources Institute, an international organization dedicated to turning ideas into action to address global environmental and development challenges. In 2006, Rolling Stone Magazine recognized me as one 25 "Warriors and Heroes” fighting to prevent a planet-wide climate catastrophe. My efforts to persuade major corporations to take climate change seriously earned me recognition as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” by Ethisphere Magazine (2007) and one of the world’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in Finance” by Treasury and Risk Management Magazine (2005).

I have written numerous articles for publications ranging from Harvard Business Review to the Washington Post. My book, A Season of Spoils (Pantheon Press, 1984), tells the story of the Reagan Administration’s appalling assault on the environment. My newest release What Death Revealed (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2024) is a historical-fiction novel that is available now on Amazon.

In my spare time I'm an avid fly fisherman and gardener, and I live with my wife in Western Massachusetts.