About Peter Thacher

About Peter Thacher

Peter Shaw Thacher
1926-1999

Peter Thacher served on IGES’ Board of Directors. He was also Chairman of the Earth Council Foundation-US. Since retiring from the United Nations in 1983 at the rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Mr. Thacher was principally associated with the World Resources Institute, and was senior advisor to Maurice Strong, the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Environment and Development–the June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.

Thacher’s twelve years with the UN included serving as the Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) European Office in Geneva until becoming Deputy Executive Director of UNEP and relocating to the Nairobi headquarters of UNEP. Mr. Thacher began his UN service as Programme Director on the staff that prepared the 1972 UN Environment Conference in Stockholm.

Mr. Thacher dedicated more than three decades of work at an international level on remote sensing and other practical applications of space science. He played a special advisory role for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and provided a unique and extremely valuable contribution to geographic information systems on local, regional, and global levels.

http://www.global500.org/Roll-of-Honour-/-Laureate-Database/Peter-S.-Thacher.html