Environmentalist Gloria Flora to speak at College of Arts and Architecture commencement
May 4, 2005
Gloria Flora (’77 B.S. L.Arch.), founder of Sustainable Obtainable Solutions (SOS), a nonprofit environmental consulting firm, will serve as the College of Arts and Architecture’s spring 2005 commencement speaker during a ceremony to be held at noon on Saturday, May 14, in Eisenhower Auditorium.
Flora, who received a College of Arts and Architecture Alumni Award in 2001, attracted public attention when, as supervisor for the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana, she placed 350,000 acres of the eastern face of the Rockies off-limits to drilling. In her next position, as supervisor of Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada, Flora inspired controversy again when she recommended the U.S. Forest Service permanently close a washed-out road along the Jarbidge River in order to preserve the bull trout, a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Although Flora was an influential force in the U.S. Forest Service, and some speculate she could have become the first female chief of the agency, she resigned from the Forest Service after both she and her employees were continually harassed.
Flora created SOS in 2001 to ensure the sustainability of public lands and the plant, animal and human communities that depend on them. In 2002, Flora testified before the House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health at a hearing on ecoterrorism and lawlessness in national forests.
She has received various awards and recognition for her work, including the Murie Award for courageous stewardship of public lands (Wilderness Society), the Environmental Quality Award for exemplary resource decision-making (Natural Resources Council of America) and Sunset Magazine’s Environmental Hero Award. She is currently in great demand as a public speaker and lives on a ranch in Montana with her husband.
Contact: Kate Hoffman, kah39@psu.edu or 814.863.2104