THEODORE M. SCHAD, Engr 1939, who died in 2005, was considered one of the 20th century’s leaders in federal water resources planning. He described his career as “a long fight for a more rational approach to water resources management,” during which he worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. National Water Commission, the National Academy of Sciences Commission on Natural Resources, and numerous congressional committees. This professorship also honors his long friendship with the late Hopkins professor Abel Wolman, world pioneer in water treatment and waste disposal and one of Mr. Schad’s teachers.
As a highly respected private consultant, Mr. Schad contributed to the development and analysis of U.S. water resource policy. In 1997, he was presented the Johns Hopkins University Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service. In establishing this chair, Mr. Schad expressed the hope that his longtime efforts to effect policies and procedures leading to sound, scientifically based management of the environment would continue under the aegis of Johns Hopkins.
Mr. Schad was married to KATHLEEN WHITE SCHAD for 45 years until her death in 1989.
Held by Benjamin F. Hobbs
BENJAMIN F. HOBBS, the inaugural Theodore M. and Kay W. Schad Professor of Environmental Management, earned his PhD in environmental systems engineering in 1983 from Cornell University. He is professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, a position he has held since 1995, and has served as chairman of that department. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Applied Statistics & Mathematics. Previously, he was economics associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory, National Center for Analysis of Energy Systems (1977-1979). He later joined the Energy Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Wigner Fellow from 1982-1984. Between 1984 and 1995, he was on the faculty of the departments of Systems Engineering and Civil Engineering at Case Western Reserve University and, while there, was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Hobbs serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems; Energy, The International Journal; The Electricity Journal; and the Journal of Infrastructure Systems (ASCE).
A much sought after expert on environmental and energy systems analysis and economics with two decades of experience in the area of energy supply, Dr. Hobbs was asked in 2008 to chair Hopkins’ President’s Task Force on Climate Change, a group that will help guide the development of the university’s new climate change policy that focuses on practical, innovative and economically viable approaches to confront this environmental threat.