Michael Sutton

Executive Director, Goldman Environmental Foundation Prize

Michael Sutton is a respected conservation leader with extensive experience in environmental advocacy, global campaigns, public policy, and nonprofit governance. He has founded, directed and chaired several nonprofit organizations. Mike is a recognized authority on natural resources law whose advocacy and guidance has been key to the success of numerous conservation initiatives in the United States and around the world.

Governor Schwarzenegger twice appointed Mike as a member of the California Fish & Game Commission, where he was instrumental in creating the nation’s largest network of marine protected areas. For more than a decade, Mike also served as summer faculty at the Vermont Law School, where he taught ocean & coastal law. The second edition of his book, Ocean & Coastal Law and Policy, was published recently by the American Bar Association.

Previously, Mike served as Vice President of the Monterey Bay Aquarium where he founded the Center for the Future of the Oceans, the Aquarium’s conservation advocacy arm. Before that, Mike helped establish conservation programs at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, where he founded the Marine Stewardship Council based in London. He chaired the Boards of COMPASS, a science communication organization, and Ocean Champions, the first political action committee for ocean conservation. Mike also has served on the Boards of the Wild Salmon Center, the Ocean Foundation, the Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Program, LightHawk, and the Santa Lucia Conservancy.

Mike spent more than a decade in government service, where he served as a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and as a park ranger with the National Park Service in Yosemite, Yellowstone, Biscayne, Death Valley, and Virgin Islands National Parks.

Mike earned a degree in international and natural resources law from George Washington University's National Law Center in Washington, D.C.