Hawken was previously the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, which is working towards the drawdown of greenhouse gases to reduce climate change. Activism In 1965, Hawken worked with Martin Luther King Jr.'s staff in Selma, Alabama, preparing for the Selma to Montgomery marches. As press coordinator, he registered members of the press, issued credentials, gave dozens of updates and interviews on national radio, and acted as marshal for the final, March, 21, March to Montgomery. That same year, Hawken worked in New Orleans as a staff photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality, focusing on voter registration drives in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and the panhandle of Florida, and photographing the Ku Klux Klan in Meridian, Mississippi, after three civil rights workers were tortured and killed. In Meridian, Hawken was assaulted and seized by Ku Klux Klan members, but escaped due to Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance and intervention. Recognition Hawken has been awarded six honorary doctorates, and received the Green Cross Millennium Award for Individual Environmental Leadership presented by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003. Speaking As a speaker, Hawken has given several hundred talks, including keynote addresses to major associations, companies, government agencies. His University commencement addresses have included: University of California, Berkeley commencement University of Portland 2009 commencement speech ("You Are Brilliant and the Earth Is Hiring") Urban Land Institute Yale University and Yale University commencement References External links Project Drawdown official website Project Regeneration website Interview on Sea Change Radio in 2014 Interview with CMCC in October 2022 Living people 1946 births American businesspeople in retailing American business writers American environmentalists American non-fiction environmental writers American male journalists Sustainability advocates Place of birth missing (living people)