April 22, 2014

Norton, Regas Join Nicholas Institute Board of Advisors

Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, April 22, 2014

CONTACT: Erin McKenzie
(919) 613-3652
erin.mckenzie@duke.edu

DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions appointed two new members to its Board of Advisors: Edward Norton and Diane Regas.

Norton, senior advisor of TPG Capital, and Regas, senior vice president for programs at the Environmental Defense Fund, will serve three-year terms on the Nicholas Institute’s board.

Regas has spent 20 years developing and supporting scientifically sound responses to environmental challenges at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Award-winning work protecting and strengthening our rivers, lakes, bays and oceans defined her tenure at the EPA. She also chaired President George W. Bush’s interagency task force on oceans, and, as a senior policy analyst for President Bill Clinton, advised the president on environmental and natural resource issues.

She is now using her extensive management and policy expertise to provide overall vision, strategy and leadership for new and current program development at the Environmental Defense Fund. At EDF Regas has helped protect one of the largest ocean areas in history—more than 195,000 square miles—and is responsible for getting half of all fish caught in U.S. waters under catch shares.

Norton previously served as The Nature Conservancy’s deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Region, working on marine and terrestrial biodiversity conversation projects in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, China, Australia and the Pacific Islands. While at TNC he helped to grow its staff from four to 54 with offices in northwest Yunnan Province and Beijing working on national-level policy issues with the government of China.

He has been an advocate for the protection of special places of natural and historic value for more than 30 years. With the provincial government of Yunnan, he set up a string a parks and wilderness preserves the size of West Virginia. Norton also began the Grand Canyon Trust, a regional conservation organization dedicated to protecting national parks, public lands, and rivers in the Colorado Plateau, as founding director in 1986. He still serves on its board of trustees.

Regas and Norton join 19 other members of the Nicholas Institute Board of Advisors, chaired by William K. Reilly, former administrator of the EPA.

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