[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E820-E821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO JOHN C. SAWHILL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. ROB PORTMAN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 23, 2000

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, May 18, our nation and our 
world lost a remarkable leader with the passing of John C. Sawhill, the 
president and chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy.
  I had the good fortune to work with John and his staff over the last 
three years as we developed the Tropical Forest Conservation Act--
legislation designed to protect the world's most threatened tropical 
forests. Under John's leadership, the Conservancy provided us with the 
technical expertise, research and political savvy to help ensure that 
the TFCA was enacted into law.
  During John's long and distinguished career in public service, 
academia, and the private sector, he held senior positions in the 
Nixon, Ford, and Carter administration; served as president of New York 
University; and was a partner in the international consulting firm of 
McKinsey and Company.
  John joined The Nature Conservancy in January 1990. Under his 
leadership, the Conservancy grew into the world's largest private 
conservation group and the nation's 14th largest nonprofit institution, 
with annual revenues of $780 million, over one million members, and a 
network of 1300 private nature reserves. Its mission is to preserve 
biodiversity by protecting wildlife habitat.
  Samuel C. Johnson, the chairman of The Conservancy's National Board 
of Governors, noted that John's passing is sad news not only for the 
Nature Conservancy family, but also for the cause of conservation. I 
could not agree more. The Conservancy's remarkable record of 
achievement over the past decade is an eloquent testimony to John's 
energy, vision, intellect, and commitment to the mission of 
conservation.
  During John's tenure, The Conservancy protected more than 7 million 
acres of land in the United States alone, including such landmark 
purchases as the 502-square-mile Gray Ranch in New Mexico in 1990 and 
the $37 million acquisition of Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific, announced 
only two weeks ago. His stewardship of the organization also saw the 
number of staff triple to the current level of 3,000 employees; total 
assets triple to $2.3 billion; and membership more than double.
  Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 12, 1936, John was raised in 
Baltimore, Maryland. At the time of his death, he resided in 
Washington, D.C. and Washington, Virginia. He graduated cum laude from 
Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and 
International Affairs in 1958 and received his Ph.D. in economics from 
New York University in 1963.

[[Page E821]]

From 1960 to 1963, he was assistant dean and assistant professor in the 
department of economics at NYU.
  John served as a director of a number of major American corporations, 
including Consolidated Edison, RCA, Philip Morris, Crane Corporation, 
General American Investors, American International Group, Automatic 
Data Processing, and North American Coal. At the time of his death, he 
was serving as a director of the Procter and Gamble Company, Pacific 
Gas and Electric Company, and the Vanguard Group of Mutual Funds.
  He was involved with a number of nonprofit organizations. He was 
chairman of the board of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, 
Economics and the Environment. He served as a member of the President's 
Council on Sustainable Development and the Environment for the Americas 
Board, the group that oversees debt-for-nature swaps and the 
establishment of conservation trust funds in several Latin American 
countries.
  In addition, he served on the Commission on the Future of the 
Smithsonian and chaired the task force on governance, management and 
financial resources. He also served as a trustee of Princeton 
University and was chairman emeritus of the Whitehead Institute for 
Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  In September 1997, John became senior lecturer of business 
administration at the Harvard Business School where he taught and 
conducted research on not-for-profit institutions. John also published 
a number of books, articles, and reports about energy and energy-
related subjects.
  John is survived by his wife, Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow at 
the Brookings Institution and president of the National Campaign to 
Prevent Teen Pregnancy; his son, James W. Sawhill, a senior vice 
president at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco; a grandson, John C. 
Sawhill II; a brother, James M. Sawhill, of Newport News, Virginia, and 
two sisters, Sally Supplee of Palo Alto, California and Monroe Hodder 
of London, England.
  John was an inspiration to me personally. I considered him not only a 
colleague but a friend. He will be greatly missed.

                          ____________________