40 Facts About Maurice Strong

Maurice Strong returned to Canada to become Chief Executive Officer of Petro-Canada from 1976 to 1978.

Maurice Strong headed Ontario Hydro, one of North America's largest power utilities, was national president and chairman of the Extension Committee of the World Alliance of YMCAs and headed American Water Development Incorporated.

Maurice Strong served as a commissioner of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1986 and was unironically recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a leader in the international environmental movement.

Maurice Strong was President of the Council of the University for Peace from 1998 to 2006.

Maurice Strong was chairman of the advisory board for the Institute for Research on Security and Sustainability for Northeast Asia.

Maurice Strong was a child during the Great Depression, enduring serious poverty.

Maurice Strong's father was laid off at the beginning of the Depression era and thereafter supported his family on odd jobs; his mother succumbed to mental illness and died in a mental hospital.

Maurice Strong was born in Oak Lake, Manitoba, a town on the Canadian prairies on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Maurice Strong is a cousin of American journalist and activist Anna Louise Strong.

Maurice Strong Management, assisting investors in locating opportunities in the Alberta oil patch.

In 1976, at the request of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Maurice Strong returned to Canada to head the newly created national oil company, Petro-Canada.

Maurice Strong was slated to stand as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in Scarborough Centre in the 1979 federal election, but chose to abandon the race, returning to private enterprise to manage AZL Resources, a Denver oil promoter that he had previously acquired, where he served as chairman and was the largest shareholder.

In 1981, Maurice Strong was sued for allegedly hyping the stock ahead of a merger that eventually failed.

Maurice Strong settled for $4.2 million at the insistence of his insurance company.

AZL merged with Tosco Corporation from which Maurice Strong acquired the 160,000 acres Baca Ranch in Colorado which would house Maurice Strong's Manitou Foundation.

Maurice Strong later became chairman of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, the holding company for some of Canada's principal government-owned corporations.

On December 31,1986, Maurice Strong founded American Water Development Incorporated which he controlled along with his associates, William Ruckelshaus, Richard Lamm, Samuel Belzberg, and Alexander Crutchfield Jr.

Maurice Strong was a director of Molten Metal Technology, Inc.

Maurice Strong filed for bankruptcy and the case was settled for $11.8 million, without a ruling of wrongdoing.

Maurice Strong was sharing a house in 1947 with the first UN Treasurer, Noah Monod, who upon request arranged a UN job for him, starting as a junior security officer at UN headquarters in Lake Success, New York.

Maurice Strong later returned to Canada, and with the support of Lester B Pearson, directed the founding of the Canadian International Development Agency in 1968.

In 1971, Maurice Strong commissioned a report on the state of the planet, Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, co-authored by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos.

Maurice Strong was one of the commissioners of the World Commission on Environment and Development, set up as an independent body by the United Nations in 1983.

Maurice Strong was a longtime Foundation Director of the World Economic Forum, a senior advisor to the president of the World Bank, a member of the International Advisory of Toyota Motor Corporation, the Advisory Council for the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Conservation Union, the World Wildlife Fund, Resources for the Future and the Eisenhower Fellowships.

Maurice Strong lobbied to change NGO perspectives on the World Bank.

Maurice Strong is believed by some to have inspired the works of former US Vice President Al Gore on climate change.

In 1999 Maurice Strong took on the task of trying to restore the viability of the University for Peace, headquartered in Costa Rica, established under a treaty.

Maurice Strong retired from the Council in the spring of 2007.

Maurice Strong became director in 1999 where he was at the center of further controversy, particularly in reference to the eviction of the beloved radio station Radio for Peace International, the fleeing of the Earth Council in 2003, and the implementation of military training programs on campus.

Maurice Strong was a board member of the Earth Council, which was created as an international body to promote the environmental policies established at Earth Summit in 1992.

In reply, Maurice Strong stated that "everything I did, I checked it out carefully with the US".

Shortly after this, Maurice Strong moved to an apartment he owned in Beijing, where he appeared to have settled.

In 2010, Maurice Strong described the nature of his activities at that time:.

Maurice Strong attended the conference, for which the United Nations Development Program paid all his travel expenses.

Maurice Strong was no stranger to skepticism and criticism as a result of his lifelong involvement in the oil industry, juxtaposed with his heavy ties to the environmental issues.

Maurice Strong was a close adviser to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and became embroiled in what is known as the Oil for Food Program Scandal and reportedly received millions of dollars from North Korean and Iraqi lobbyists.

Maurice Strong died at the age of 86 on November 27,2015 in Ottawa, Ontario.

Maurice Strong received a number of honours, awards and medals.

Maurice Strong received 53 honorary doctorate degrees and honorary visiting professorships at 7 universities.

Maurice Strong's papers are archived at the Environmental Science and Public Policy Archives in the Harvard Library.