News Release

EVENT NEWS RELEASE/March 12, 2008

Boise State's Distinguished Lecture Series Features Environmental Architect William McDonough April 17

William McDonough, internationally renowned “green” designer and winner of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, will speak as part of the Boise State University Distinguished Lecture Series just days before Earth Day. McDonough will speak at 7 p.m. April 17 in the Morrison Center. His lecture, “The Next Industrial Revolution,” is free and no tickets are required. Limited seating is available on a first-come basis. Doors open at 6 p.m. and parking is free.

William McDonough

In 1999, Time magazine recognized McDonough as a “Hero for the Planet,” stating “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that in demonstrable and practical ways is changing the design of the world.”

In addition to receiving the Presidential Award in 1996, the nation’s highest environmental honor, McDonough has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award as a member of the EcoWorx™ development team for Shaw Industries. Most recently, he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. Presented annually by the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, it is an award recognizing “excellence, innovation and lasting achievement.”

In 2002, he teamed with German chemist Michael Braungart to co-author “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.” The book has since been published in German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean translations. McDonough and Braungart were also the subjects of a 2001 documentary video, “The Next Industrial Revolution,” from Earthome Productions.

McDonough is principal of MBDC, a product and system development firm involved in designing profitable and environmentally intelligent solutions. He is also the founding principal of William McDonough+Partners, alumni research professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and consulting professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.

Since 2001, the student-funded Distinguished Lecture Series has brought to Boise State speakers who have had a major impact in politics, the arts, science, business or in another realm of contemporary significance.

Former speakers in the series include National Book Award winner Jonathan Kozol, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Nobel laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz, biologist E.O. Wilson and Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former president of Poland Lech Walesa, among others. More information on the series is at  www.boisestate.edu/distinguishedlectures/.