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Tom Brokaw presented Dan W. Lufkin with the Connecticut
Environmental Leadership Award at Audubon Connecticut’s
Dancing with Nature Fall Dinner Dance at the Belle Haven Club
in Greenwich, CT. The gala evening raised over $750,000 for
the Long Island Sound policy, conservation and education
programs of the National Audubon Society work through Audubon
Connecticut and its Audubon Greenwich Center. This is the most
raised in a single night for any one Audubon program in
Connecticut.
This is only the second time that this Environmental
Leadership award has been presented. Dan Lufin is renown for
his business prowess from Chairman of Donaldson, Lufin, &
Jenrette to co-founder of Questor Partners Fund 1 & 11. Dan’s
record led the Wall Street Journal to list him among the most
significant “100 Men in the World: People Who Influenced Our
Daily Business”. His true passion is for the environment. In
1970 he was a member of the organizing group of the first
Earth Day. For more than forty years Dan has been deeply
involved in the protection and restoration of Connecticut’s
first Commissioner of the Department of Environmental
Protection. Under his watch, Connecticut was one of the first
states in the nation to establish inland wetland regulations
and the first to create a private enterprise, Resource
Recovery Authority. Dan gave a gift of $100,000 towards the
campaign to restore the Sound.
The evening’s Master of Ceremonies was Audubon CT State Board
Chair, Holt Thrasher, who said, “By definition, Conservation
is “Humanity caring about the Future.” Gina McCarthy, cur rent
DEP Commissioner spoke on the legacy Lufkin and his team has
provided the state.
Tom Brokaw made the Award presentation. “Even Washington is
beginning to get the message that you can’t conduct business
on a dead planet,” said the former NBC anchor and author. And
then, “You all know why we are here. Dan Lufkin has always
been a great citizen, we need to enlist more like him.”
Audubon Connecticut is the state office of the National
Audubon Society. Its mission is to further the protection of
birds, other wildlife and their habitats through science,
education, advocacy, for the benefit of humanity and the
earth’s biological diversity. Audubon Connecticut envisions a
state with a rich and diverse natural heritage, where there is
ample habitat for birds and other wildlife. Where a majority
of its people appreciate and participate in their natural
environment, and whose children are educated and motivated to
become the conservation leaders of tomorrow. |