Overview
This award recognizes University of Wisconsin-Green Bay graduates who have distinguished themselves in their professional field and are widely recognized for their career accomplishments in the areas of sustainability, environmental management, environmental policy, or other closely related areas. If you know of a UW-Green Bay alumnus who meets the award’s criteria, please return to complete the online nomination form to be considered for a future award.
2019 Earth Caretaker Award Recipient
Dr. Yue Rong
Dr. Yue Rong (aka, YR) is currently the Environmental Program Manager at the California Environmental Protection Agency, Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. He was also the acting Assistant Executive Officer of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, in groundwater division. Dr. Rong is the manager in charge of site assessment and remediation of leaking underground storage tank (UST) sites, and the program of water quality control in oil and gas production fields. The UST program contains large number of leaking UST sites to be remediated in Los Angeles area, which was ranked in top 10 in terms of total numbers of the impacted sites. He has 29-year experience with the Agency in dealing with groundwater contamination problems in the Los Angeles area of California, U.S.A. His expertise includes organic pollutants fate and transport in the subsurface soil and groundwater, environmental analytical chemistry and quality assurance and quality control, environmental statistics, risk assessment, and soil and groundwater pollution assessment and remediation. The projects he worked and involved with include collaboration with USEPA at superfund sites in Los Angeles area, Santa Monica methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) drinking water pollution cleanup, I-710 corridor regional cleanup, and water quality control at oil and gas production fields in Los Angeles area.
Dr. Rong was the recipient of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board Outstanding Achievement Award and Supervisory Performance Award. He also received 2011 AEHS Foundation Achievement Award. He is an Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journal of Soil and Sediment Contamination and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Environmental Forensics. Dr. Rong is the author or co-authors for about 30 peer-reviewed publications. He is also the editor of the book entitled “Practical Environmental Statistics and Data Analysis” and another book entitled “Fundamentals of Environmental Site Assessment and Remediation”, published in July 2018. Dr. Rong served as chairman for the UCLA Alumni Association Outstanding Graduate Student Nominating Committee in 2004. Dr. Rong was elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2008 as the president of Southern California Chinese American Environmental Protection Association (SCCAEPA), and the president of Chinese-American Engineers and Scientists Association of Southern California (CESASC) in 2015, serving the local minority community. He is also the Editor-in-Chief for the peer-reviewed SCCAEPA Online Journal. Dr. Yue Rong has his Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), M.S. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and B.S. in Earth Science from Beijing Normal University.
Nomination Criteria:
- Has earned either an undergraduate and/or graduate degree from UW-Green Bay.
- Has not attended UW-Green Bay in the last 10 years.
- Must have a distinctive and distinguished record of achievement with recognition and reputation extending well beyond the immediate environment in which they live and work.
- The record of distinctive achievement should extend over a substantial period of time to assure continuity of performance, stability and maturity.
Nomination Process:
- Alumni, friends of the University, faculty/staff, and the public at large are invited to make nominations.
- Nominations are accepted year round (via the website or mail), with the deadline of October 31 for consideration for the award for the following year.
- Nominees are notified and asked to submit the following for their file:
- Letter of application
- Résumé
- Any additional documentation they wish to provide including letters of recommendation from others
- Recipients are required to attend the awards ceremony, which will be part of the annual EMBI Green Innovations Conference held during Earth Week.
- After all the necessary documents have been received, candidates remain active for consideration for a period of three years
- One award will be presented each year
Questions?
Contact the EMBI Director:
John Arendt at 920-465-2278 or arendtjo@uwgb.edu