William D. Ruckelshaus is currently a Strategic Director in the Madrona Venture Group, and a principal in Madrona Investment Group, LLC, a Seattle based investment company. He was Chairman and Chairman/CEO of Browning-Ferris Industries. Ruckelshaus graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and obtained his law degree from Harvard University. He was Deputy Attorney General of Indiana and a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and its majority leader. He held a Presidential appointment as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ruckelshaus became the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s first Administrator. He was appointed acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and in the same year was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice. Ruckelshaus was a senior partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Ruckelshaus Beveridge & Fairbanks. He later joined Weyerhaeuser Company as Senior Vice President for Law and Corporate Affairs. Ruckelshaus was appointed by President Reagan as the fifth EPA Administrator where he served until joining Perkins Coie in 1985, a Seattle based law firm.
Currently, Ruckelshaus serves as a director of several corporations, including Cummins Engine Company, Nordstrom, Inc., Vykor, Inc., TVW, and Weyerhaeuser Company. He served on the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations. President Clinton appointed him as the U.S. envoy in the implementing of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. He was appointed by Governor Gary Locke and is currently serving as the Chairman of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board for the State of Washington. He serves on the boards of numerous other nonprofit organizations.
In 2001, he was appointed by President Bush as a member of the Commission on Ocean Policy. He serves on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Science Advisory Board. In 2004, Ruckelshaus was appointed Chairman of the WSU/UW Policy Consensus Center and recently served as the Chairman of World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.