Denis Hayes

Denis Hayes is president of the Bullitt Foundation and board chair of the International Earth Day Network as well as the immediate past chair of the Energy Foundation. During the Carter administration, Hayes headed the federal Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory). From 1983 to 1988, he was an adjunct professor of energy engineering at Stanford University and in 1982 he was Regents’ Professor of Energy and Resources at the University of California. In 1970, he was national coordinator of the first Earth Day, an event often credited with launching the modern American environmental movement. In 1979, Hayes received the Jefferson Medal for greatest public service by an individual under the age of 35, and in 1985, he was awarded the Sierra Club's John Muir Award. He has also received the highest honors awarded by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Council of America, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Global Environment Facility of the World Bank. In 1993, he received the Charles Greeley Abbot Award of the American Solar Energy Society, and in 2000 was elected as a fellow of the Society. Hayes serves, or has served, on the boards of Stanford University, the Federation of American Scientists, the Energy Foundation, the World Resources Institute, the League of Conservation Voters, the Ruckelshaus Center, Earth Day Network, and the Environmental Grantmakers Association. He has written more than 100 articles and is the author of Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-Petroleum World (1977), and Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair (1999). He received his undergraduate and J.D. degrees at Stanford University.