William
Doyle Ruckelshaus served as the very first head of the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1970 and did much to help create the infrastructure and set the course
of the EPA's activities. He headed the agency until 1973, when he was appointed
by President Nixon to serve as acting Director of the FBI and then Deptuy US Attorney
General. In a famous act known as the 'Satuarday Night Massacre' Ruckelshaus and
his boss resigned, rather than fire the special Watergate prosecutor as the President
directed them.
When
the EPA was in trouble in 1983, President Reagan called on Ruckelshaus to serve
as interim director for a couple years to help the agency rebuild its tarnished
image. Ruckelshaus was appointed by President Clinton in 1999 to serve as the
US envoy for the Pacific Salmon Treaty and President Bush appointed him to serve
on the US Commission on Ocean Policy to make recommendations for a national ocean
policy. William Ruckelshaus currently serves as a director of several coprorations
and is on the board of numerous commissions and non profit organizations working
to create more sustainable national environmental policies.
