William Yancey Brown

William Yancey Brown
Born	August 13, 1948 Artesia, California

William Y. Brown (born August 13, 1948) is a zoologist and attorney. He is currently a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council after retiring in 2024 as the chief environmental officer of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the Department of the Interior. He is a former nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a former science advisor to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, a former president of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, a former president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a former president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Biography

Brown was born in Artesia, California, on August 13, 1948, and graduated from high school in Brazil at the Escola Americana do Recife. He later graduated from the University of Virginia (BA 1969, Biology, with highest distinction), Johns Hopkins University (MAT, 1970), the University of Hawaiʻi where he was an NSF Fellow (Ph.D., 1973, Zoology), and Harvard Law School (JD, 1977).

Professional life

From 1973 to 1974, Brown was assistant biological of professor sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. During law school, he held summer and consulting positions with the Environmental Protection Agency (1974), Council on Environmental Quality (1975), and the Department of the Interior (1976–77). ^[1]

In 1977, Brown was appointed executive secretary of the U.S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority, overseeing treaty commitments for wildlife trade. ^{[2] [3]} In 1980, he was appointed executive secretary of the International Convention Advisory Commission, with similar responsibilities. Brown left government in 1981 with a change in administration,^{[ citation needed ]} and by 1983 was senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. ^{[4] [5]}

In 1985, Brown joined Waste Management, Inc. and was vice president for environmental planning and programs and the first chairman of the firm's executive environmental committee. He advocated protection of biological diversity and limiting waste exports to developing countries. ^[6] Brown left WMI in October 1994 and worked as a consultant, first with Hagler Bailly Consulting as a principal and later with the World Wildlife Fund as a senior fellow.

Brown served with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt as science advisor from April 1997 ^[7] until January 2001. There, he advocated, wrote and negotiated executive orders for coral reef protection and invasive species management issued by President William Clinton and orders of Secretary Bruce Babbitt establishing marine national wildlife refuges for Navassa Island off Haiti and Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef south of Hawaii. ^[8]

On leaving the government with a change in administration, he served as vice president for oceans and science policy at the National Audubon Society before being recruited by the Bishop Museum, where he served as president and CEO from October 2001 to January 2007. He is credited with stabilizing the museum both financially and politically, improving attendance and successfully undertaking several expansions and renovations. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12]} He served as president and CEO of the Academy of Natural Sciences from February 2007 to January 2010. ^{[13] [14]} He served as president and CEO of the Woods Hole Research Center from February 2010 to January 2011. ^[15] He was a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from June 2011 until November 2013, ^{[16] [17] [18]} when he was appointed the chief environmental officer of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. ^{[19] [20]} He served in that position until June 2024 and was appointed a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in October 2024. ^[21]

References

1. "William Yancey Brown" (PDF).
2. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Endangered Species Scientific Authority Gets First Executive Secretary and Charter” August 5, 1977
3. Rensberger, Boyce (June 20, 1978). "U.S. Is Pressed to Comply With Wildlife Protection Treaty". New York Times.
4. Shabecoff, Philip (March 26, 1983). "Army Corps of Engineers Proposes to Ease Law Protecting Wetlands". The New York Times.
5. Environmental Defense Fund (1971–1986). "Environmental Defense Fund Archive Collection 232". Stony Brook University: Special Collections and University Archives.
6. Shabecoff, Philip (July 5, 1988). "Irate and Afraid, Poor Nations Fight Efforts to Use Them as Toxic Dumps". The New York Times.
7. Wright, John (April 10, 1997). "William Y. Brown Appointed Science Advisor to the Secretary of Interior". ScienceBlog.
8. Pala, Christopher (December 19, 2006). "A Struggle to Preserve a Hawaiian Archipelago and Its Varied Wildlife". The New York Times.
9. Hoover, Will (January 2, 2007). "Bishop Museum goes headhunting". The Honolulu Advertiser.
10. McDermott, John (August 25, 2006). "High-energy team has Bishop Museum on a roll". Pacific Business News.
11. McDermott, John (August 20, 2006). "Bishop Museum will work its magic on musty Hawaiian Hall". Pacific Business News.
12. Pala, Christopher (March–April 2008). "Paradise Almost Lost: Hawaii's Bishop Museum Grapples with NAGPRA".
13. Bauers, Sandy (June 16, 2007). "Rock on: Academy won't sell collection". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
14. Hurdle, Jon (June 23, 2008). "Philadelphia Set to Honor Darwin and Evolution". The New York Times.
15. Williams, Wendy (March 15, 2010). "An expert applies science to policy". The Providence Journal.
16. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/brownw_bio.pdf ^{[ bare URL PDF ]}
17. Butler, Declan (November 18, 2011). "Revolution offers chance for Libyan archaeology". Nature News.
18. Goldenberg, Suzanne (September 2, 2011). "Rio+20 summit co-ordinator seeks to put agriculture centre stage". The Guardian.
19. "BOEM Announces Selection Of Dr. William Yancey Brown As Chief Environmental Officer". Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. November 22, 2013.
20. "Attributes of a First-in-Class Environmental Program: A Letter Report Prepared for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management". National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. 2022.
21. "William Yancey Brown". Atlantic Council.