37 Facts About William Ruckelshaus

William Doyle Ruckelshaus was an American attorney and government official.

William Ruckelshaus was the first Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1973, after being nominated by Richard Nixon.

William Ruckelshaus returned to the position from 1983 to 1985, as the fifth Administrator of the EPA, during the Reagan administration.

William Ruckelshaus was from a distinguished family with a long history of practicing law in Indianapolis and serving in Republican Party politics.

William Ruckelshaus attended parochial schools until the age of 16, then finished high school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, at the Portsmouth Abbey School.

William Ruckelshaus began college at Princeton University before being drafted and serving for two years in the United States Army, becoming a drill sergeant at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington.

In 1960, William Ruckelshaus married Ellen Urban, who died the following year from complications incurred after giving birth to their twin daughters.

William Ruckelshaus's brother was John C Ruckelshaus and his nephew was John Ruckelshaus; they served in the Indiana General Assembly.

In 1964, William Ruckelshaus ran as a moderate Republican in the US House election in Indiana's 11th district, losing in the primary to Don Tabbert, a candidate from the conservative wing of the party.

William Ruckelshaus subsequently spent a year as minority attorney for the Indiana Senate.

William Ruckelshaus won a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1966, benefiting from an up year for Republicans overall.

William Ruckelshaus served in the House for one term, until 1968.

William Ruckelshaus became the first first-term legislator to serve as majority leader of the House.

William Ruckelshaus held the post until his appointment as the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

William Ruckelshaus became the US Environmental Protection Agency's first administrator when the agency was formed on December 2,1970 by Nixon.

Also during his first tenure at the EPA, William Ruckelshaus advocated for and enacted a ban on the insecticide DDT.

William Ruckelshaus laid the foundation for the EPA by hiring its leaders by defining its mission, deciding on priorities, and selecting an organizational structure.

William Ruckelshaus oversaw the implementation of the Clean Air Act of 1970.

In 1975, William Ruckelshaus moved to Seattle, Washington, where he accepted a position as senior vice-president for law and corporate affairs of the Tacoma-based Weyerhaeuser timber company.

William Ruckelshaus was one of Gerald Ford's preferred candidates to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1976 election.

In 1983, with the EPA in crisis due to mass resignations over the mishandling of the Superfund program, President Ronald Reagan appointed William Ruckelshaus to serve as EPA Administrator again.

William Ruckelshaus attempted to win back public confidence in the EPA, a challenging task in the face of a skeptical press and a wary Congress, both of whom scrutinized all aspects of the agency's activities and some of whom interpreted a number of its actions in the worst possible light.

Nonetheless, William Ruckelshaus filled the top-level staffing slots with persons of competence, turned the attention of the staff back to the agency's fundamental mission, and raised the esteem of the agency in the public mind.

On November 28,1984, William Ruckelshaus announced that he would be retiring as EPA head, effective January 5,1985, around the start of President Reagan's second term.

William Ruckelshaus remained Administrator until February 7,1985, when his successor, Lee M Thomas, was confirmed.

William Ruckelshaus was at Perkins Coie, a Seattle-based law firm, from 1985 to 1988.

William Ruckelshaus was appointed Chairman of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board for the state of Washington.

In June 2010, William Ruckelshaus became co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative.

William Ruckelshaus served as a director on boards of several corporations, including Isilon Systems, Monsanto, Cummins, Pharmacia, Solutia, Coinstar, Nordstrom, Pfizer, and Weyerhaeuser.

William Ruckelshaus was Chair of the Advisory Board of The William D Ruckelshaus Center at the University of Washington and Washington State University, Chair Emeritus of the University of Wyoming's Ruckelshaus Institute for Environment and Natural Resources, Chairman Emeritus of the World Resources Institute, and Chair of the Meridian Institute.

William Ruckelshaus was a director of the Initiative for Global Development.

In 2008, William Ruckelshaus endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 election for President of the United States.

In 2008, William Ruckelshaus was appointed to the Washington State Puget Sound Partnership, an agency devoted to cleaning up Puget Sound.

In early 2012, William Ruckelshaus was appointed co-chair of the Washington Blue Ribbon Panel on ocean acidification.

William Ruckelshaus died 5 months before 2 other Acting FBI Directors, James B Adams and John E Otto, and 6.5 months before FBI Director, William S Sessions.

In November 2015, William Ruckelshaus was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama during a ceremony at the White House.

William Ruckelshaus died at his home in Medina, Washington, on November 27,2019, at age 87.