Randy Hayes has been described in the Wall Street Journal as “an environmental pit bull.” Hayes founded Rainforest Action Network and remains on its Board. He works from Washington DC and is currently starting along with Andrew Kimbrell and Brent Blackwelder, a new think tank called Foundation Earth. The challenge for Foundation Earth is to help develop the big picture of a new human order, including economic models, legal/governance systems, educational programs, and health care systems that work within the larger order of the planet’s life support systems. This calls for the reinvention of the role of human society on earth. Foundation Earth is for major societal transformation, not incremental reform. Hayes, a former filmmaker, is a veteran of many high-visibility corporate accountability campaigns and has advocated for the rights of Indigenous peoples throughout the world. He served for five years as president of the City of San Francisco Commission on the Environment, and for two-and-a-half years as director of sustainability in the office of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown (now governor). Randy sits on eight non-profit Board of Directors and numerous Boards of Advisors. As a wilderness lover, Hayes has hiked a bit in the Amazon, Borneo, Central Africa, Southeast Asian rainforests, High Sierras and the Canadian Rockies.
Hayes has an undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and a Master’s degree in Environmental Planning from San Francisco State University. His master’s thesis, the award-winning film The Four Corners, won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award for “Best Student Documentary” in 1983. He contributed to Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, published by San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., in 2004. Not satisfied with short-term thinking, his 500-year plan offers a vision of a sustainable society and how to get there. Randy Hayes was honored by his corporate campaign activists peers in 2008 with an Individual Achievement Award, given by the Business Ethics Network. In 2010 he was both Alumni of the Year and inducted in the Alumni Hall Fame at San Francisco State University. Additionally, he was one of the original set of inductees in the National Environmental Hall of Fame.
Randy Hayes is a hero and a visionary—a radical messenger with the mentality of a Madison Avenue ad executive who is selling just one thing, saving the world before it is too late.
- Adam Werbach, Former President of the Sierra Club