G. Michael Sutton
Board Member
Michael Sutton is an internationally respected leader in environmental conservation. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, which awards the annual Goldman Prize—the “Nobel Prize for the Environment”. He has chaired the Boards of numerous organizations involved in conservation and science. Sutton served as a National Park Ranger, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Agent, and President of the California Fish & Game Commission. He also was a member of the summer faculty at the Vermont Law School, where he taught natural resources law. The second edition of his book, Ocean & Coastal Law and Policy, was published by the American Bar Association in 2015.
Governor Schwarzenegger twice appointed Sutton to the California Fish & Game Commission, where he served from 2007-2015 and was instrumental in creating the nation’s largest network of protected areas along the California coast. On the Commission, he was known for bringing diverse stakeholders together and forging a common sense of purpose. He was elected President of the Commission for two years and served on the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board, making $100 million in grants for land conservation each year.
From 2012 to 2015, Sutton served as Vice President, Pacific Flyway with the National Audubon Society. He was a member of Audubon’s National Leadership Team and oversaw Audubon’s conservation programs in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Working with Audubon, Ducks Unlimited, the California Waterfowl Association, and others, he developed plans to build a Pacific Flyway Center in northern California to inspire conservation of wetlands and waterfowl. Previously, Sutton served as Vice President of the Monterey Bay Aquarium where he founded the Center for the Future of the Oceans.
Before that, Sutton worked at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where he established new global movements in conservation. At the World Wildlife Fund, he launched WWF’s Endangered Seas Campaign, the organization’s first global ocean conservation effort. Sutton forged a groundbreaking business-environment partnership with Unilever and founded the Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s first ecolabel for seafood from sustainable fisheries. He is former Board Chair of the Wild Salmon Center, conserving wild salmon across the North Pacific. Sutton also is member of the Advisory Boards of Global Conservation, the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, the Ocean Foundation, the Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Program, LightHawk— volunteer pilots who fly light aircraft for conservation—and the Santa Lucia Conservancy, a land trust.
Prior to joining the WWF staff, Sutton 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, Death Valley, Biscayne, and Virgin Islands National Parks.
Sutton received a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University and studied ecology at the University of Sydney, Australia. He earned a law degree in international and natural resources law from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. In 2013, he was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by Utah State University.
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