Buzz Thompson in California

Barton “Buzz” Thompson, ’73, MBA ’76, JD ’76, is a global expert on water and land conservation. He is the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law at Stanford Law School and a professor of environmental behavior sciences in Stanford’s new Doerr School of Sustainability. He also is a senior fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, which he co-founded in 2004 and then co-directed for a dozen years. He has served on the boards of multiple land trusts and conservation organizations, including as a trustee of The Nature Conservancy. He believes that the best way to learn about a region and the environment is while enjoying them. He has taught western water policy while rafting with his students down the Colorado River, public land policy while hiking national parks in Utah, and South African environmental law while on safari with his law students.

During our program, Buzz will lecture on the history of Joshua Tree and Death Valley, water challenges in the Colorado River basin and the California desert, battles over the management of public lands in the U.S., and the desert pup fish (one of the most endangered yet resilient fish species on the Earth, and a resident of Death Valley).

• At Stanford Law School: Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law since 1995; vice dean, 1999–2004; founding director, environmental and natural resources program

• Professor of environmental behavioral sciences, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

• Senior fellow and founding Perry L. McCarty Director, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

• Former senior fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

• Former special master, United States Supreme Court

• Chairman of the board, Resources Legacy Fund; California trustee, The Nature Conservancy

• BA, economics and political science, 1972, Stanford University

• MBA, 1976, Stanford Business School

• JD, 1976, Stanford Law School