Heinz Center Names Conn Nugent As New President

March 9, 2012 - PRLog -- FOR INFORMATION:
Anne Kalmer Cainion
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Heinz Center Names Conn Nugent As New President

Washington, DC – Conn Nugent, a veteran conservationist and foundation executive, has been appointed President of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.

Nugent comes to Heinz directly from the JM Kaplan Fund in New York, where he served as Executive Director since September 2000.  During his time there, the Kaplan Fund earned a reputation as a quick-reacting supporter of scientists and activists trying to place conservation objectives high on agendas of emerging issues: shipping in the Arctic; fishing on the High Seas; ranching in northern Mexico; pedestrian plazas in New York waterfronts. “There aren’t many funders who see farther or act quicker than Conn,” says Lynn Lohr, Executive Director of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, a membership organization of U.S. government agencies and foundations working on conservation issues.

Previous to his work at Kaplan, Nugent directed the environment program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, ran the Five Colleges consortium in Western Massachusetts, and served as Executive Director of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War when that organization won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.  His articles and op-eds have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines.

“We’re very happy to have Conn on board,” says Teresa Heinz, founder of The Heinz Center – named for her late husband, U.S. Senator John Heinz – and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. “He combines two qualities you don’t often find together: an idealism about the preservation of nature alongside a pragmatic approach to the issues and coalitions that we need to move them along. We all like his stubborn optimism.”

Heinz Center Chairman Mark Gorenberg, Managing Partner of San Francisco investment firm Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, adds “Conn’s record is about combining science and economics to protect biodiversity while helping local communities. That’s the Heinz Center approach as well, with the big added ambition that here we are trying to inform national policy.  We’re relentlessly bipartisan, and determined to get results.”

The Heinz Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to advance sound environmental policy based on rigorous science and economics to ensure a healthy, thriving world.  Established in 1995 in memory of Senator H. John Heinz III (1938-1991), the Center carries out this mission by engaging experts with diverse perspectives – including policy makers, scientists, industry leaders and advocates – providing analysis, and facilitating dialogue among these groups to find enduring solutions to our most pressing environmental problems.  The Center is perhaps best known as the author of the seminal State of the Nation's Ecosystems reports, the "go-to" reference for policymakers on the condition and use of ecosystems in the U.S.  In 2011, the Center launched a new program, Horizons@Heinz, designed to bring important emerging environmental issues to the attention of Washington D.C. decision-makers.