The awards are important because "they attempt to recognize people [working] on projects that, for one reason or other, are extremely successful on a local or regional basis, but haven't been well known nationally," says Joseph S. Larson, director of the Environmental Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. One of the benefits of the award is that the winners are "given publicity across the nation," says Larson, who won a Chevron Award last year for developing models for assessing fresh-water wetlands.
The San Francisco-based Chevron Corp. is the third company to sponsor the awards. Nash-Kelvinator Corp., which later became American Motors Corp., was the sponsor from the program's inception in 1954 until 1981, when Gulf Oil took over the program. In 1986, the name was changed to the Chevron Conservation Awards to reflect Chevron's acquisition of Gulf.
Says Bill Roper, coordinator of the program at Chevron, "it didn't take ...
