Spring Samuel Proctor Lecture Series begins with environmental activist

January 15, 2009

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Spring 2009 Samuel Proctor Florida History Lecture Series begins Jan. 21 with a presentation by environmental activist and public servant Nathaniel Reed. The theme for this semester will be “Florida, Water, and the Environment,” and will include talks by policy leaders, journalists and academics.

Reed will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Pugh Hall Ocora with a talk titled “Water and Land Management in Florida: Old Challenges in the New Economy.” The series is sponsored by the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.

Reed, who received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Connecticut, is vice chairman of the Everglades Foundation and chairman of the Commission on Florida’s Environmental Future. He also served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks in the Nixon and Ford administrations and as adviser to seven Florida governors on environmental issues.

“We are truly honored to have Mr. Reed discuss the future of Florida’s environment,” said Michael Bowen, assistant director of the Graham Center. “His speech will draw from his experience in both the government and the nonprofit sectors to give a kind of forecast of the looming challenges we face in the wake of the current economic crisis.”

Former Florida Gov. Bob Graham, a UF alumnus, worked with Reed on numerous projects during his administration.

“Nat Reed was the acknowledged leader of a new wave of Floridians who fundamentally transformed the environmental culture, values and public policies of the state from 1967 to the mid 1970s,” Graham said. “In that decade he and his colleagues, like him relatively new to the state, young, and Republican, shared a vision of retaining the natural qualities which had drawn them to Florida. They reversed the long held belief that Florida was a commodity to be altered, packaged and sold to that of the ethic of the trustee, obligated to hand off to the next generation a Florida better than when received. Nat’s commitment to that goal is underscored by the fact that 40 years later he is as tenacious, eloquent and focused as he was at the beginning of Florida’s environmental revolution.”

The Samuel Proctor Florida History Lecture Series is made possible by generous donations from the Proctor family and alumni members of the Tau Epsilon Phi Fraternity.

The Graham Center for Public Service provides students with opportunities to train for future leadership positions, meet policymakers and take courses in critical thinking, language learning and studies of world cultures. Its mission is to foster public leadership and solve issues related to the Americas and homeland security. It also serves as a magnet to attract distinguished scholars and speakers to Florida.