Thacher, Peter S.

"Mr. [Peter S.] Thacher (1926-1999) was born in New York City, served in the US Navy during World War II attending Dartmouth College in the V-12 program, and graduated from Yale University in 1948. From 1948 to 1951 he was employed at the European Marshall Plan Headquarters in Paris, and thereafter served with the Department of Army in Washington, Korea and Japan. In 1956 he was assigned by the State Department to the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York where he served until 1971 as Counselor for Science and Technology, Arms Control, Outer Space and Seabeds. In 1971 he joined the United Nations as Program Director for the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (June, 1972 Stockholm ) and was in charge of United Nations Environment Programme 's European Office in Geneva until 1977 when he then moved to the Nairobi office where he was the Director for approximately 5 years. In 1983 he retired from the UN as Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, with the rank of United Nations Assistant Secretary-General. In 1985, the Government of Spain conferred on him the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Civil Merit in recognition of his role in creating the Mediterranean Action Plan in the mid 1970s. Since retiring from the UN in 1983 his work with United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration and UNEP led to the establishment of GRID - the Global Resources Information Database. He also served in an advisory capacity to a variety of groups including the World Health Organization, ( WHO ), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, ( IUCN ), the U.S. National Committee for Man and Biosphere Program ( MAB ), and the United Nations University ( UNU ). He was a member of the Advisory Committee on Environment of the International Council of Scientific Unions ( ICSU ), the Board of Americans for Universality of UNESCO, and the Board of Review of the American Society of International Law, and was a member of the United States Committee of ISCU 's Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment ( SCOPE ). He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( AAAS ) and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ( ASPRS ) as well as a number of natural resource and environment groups. In 1987 he received UNEP's Global 500 Award . He joined the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit, policy-research organization in Washington, as Senior Counselor in the mid 1980s and served as the Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio, 1992)." (Author unknown, from biographical notes found within collection.)

From the guide to the Environment collection of Peter S. Thacher, 1960-1996., (Environmental Science and Public Policy Archives)

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