The city of Ann Arbor officially declared Friday, September 9, 2011, Jonathan Bulkley Day in honor of the University of Michigan's professor's retirement after 43 years with the School of Natural Resources & Environment. A globally recognized authority on water, in 1991 Dr. Bulkley founded the National Pollution Prevention Center that evolved into the Center for Sustainable Systems.
To Peter Wege, Jonathan is not only a gifted scholar, teacher, and researcher, but he is also one of Peter's closest friends. They first met in Lansing in 1991 when Dr. Bulkley and Greg Keoleian, his Ph.D student at the time, invited Peter to serve as the new NPPC's first board chair. Thus began a professional collaboration and personal relationship between the academician in Ann Arbor and the business man in Grand Rapids that continues on.
Pictured above, next to the sign inviting guests to Dr. Bulkley's retirement seminar in the Dana Building, is Ellen Satterlee, CEO of The Wege Foundation. While Jonathan planned the panel discussion given by his former students, he knew nothing about Ellen's surprise announcement. She told the full auditorium of Jonathan's family, friends, fans, and students that Peter Wege and The Wege Foundation were establishing the "Jonathan W. Bulkley Collegiate Professorship in Sustainable Systems Fund."
The award will go to a faculty member who is actively advancing the research and educational mission of SNRE and the Center for Sustainable Systems. The honoree will be given the Sustainability Professorship named for Dr. Bulkley. Ellen's second surprise from The Wege Foundation is an endowment to support Ph.D. students in the dual Ph.D. program between the University of Michigan's School of Engineering and the SNRE.
