Denis Hayes is a leading environmental activist and proponent of Solar
power. He rose to prominence in 1970 as the coordinator for the first Earth
Day.
Denis Hayes was born in Wisconsin in 1944, but predominantly raised in the
small town of Camas, Washington. His experiences growing up in the Pacific
Northwest instilled a lifelong love of nature. He received his undergraduate
degree in history from Stanford University, where he was president of the
student body, and an activist against the Vietnam War. During those years, he
spent significant time backpacking to remote corners of the world.
Hayes later enrolled at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University. He left Harvard to join with Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the
first Earth Day. The first Earth Day (April 22, 1970) had participants and
celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, about ten thousand
primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities. It is believed that
some 20 million demonstrators participated.
Hayes served as international chairman for Earth Day's anniversaries in 1990
and 2000. Internationally, he is recognized for expanding the Earth Day Network
to more than 180 nations. It is now the world's most widely observed secular
holiday. Hayes continues to chair the board of the international Earth Day
Network.
During the Carter Administration, Hayes became the Director of the Federal
National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He later returned to Stanford and
obtained his Juris Doctor degree.
Since 1992, Hayes has been president of the Bullitt Foundation in Seattle,
Washington. By mobilizing the resources of The Bullitt Foundation, Hayes
intends to make the Pacific Northwest the best-educated, most environmentally
aware, most progressive corner of America - a global model for sustainable
development. Also in Seattle are Hayes' wife, Gail Boyer Hayes (daughter of
Paul D. Boyer[1]), and daughter, Lisa A. Hayes (a Seattle lawyer defending Tent
City 4 (King County, Washington).
Over Hayes' career, he has been a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
Center, a senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute, an adjunct professor of
engineering at Stanford University, and a Silicon Valley lawyer. He has served
on dozens of governing boards, including those of Stanford University, the
World Resources Institute, the Federation of American Scientists, The Energy
Foundation, Children Now, the National Programming Council for Public
Television, the American Solar Energy Society, Greenpeace, CERES, and the
Environmental Grantmakers Association.
Hayes has received the national Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Public
Service as well as the highest awards bestowed by the Sierra Club, The Humane
Society of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural
Resources Council of America, the Global Environmental Facility of the World
Bank, the interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, and the American
Solar Energy Society. Time Magazine has named him as "Hero of the
Planet".
