William E. Morgan

William E. Morgan, IV

Billy was born in New Jersey and moved to Carlisle, Massachusetts in 1990. He graduated from Concord-Carlisle High School and received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from New York University in 2004. Shortly after graduation, Billy left for San Francisco where he found a job as a paralegal with Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner, LLP. Providing paralegal support for toxic tort sensitized Billy to environmental issues and encouraged him to pursue a degree in Environmental Management at Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. While at Yale, he was a Research Assistant in Yale’s Office of Sustainability where he managed their Sustainability Metrics database. In the Law School’s Environmental Clinic, Billy worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council on a petition to the EPA to lower the threshold for mercury emissions and with litigation for protecting western communities from human health and environmental impacts of oil and gas production. He received his Master of Environmental Management in 2009.

Billy loved the West Coast, enrolled in the University of Washington Law School to study environmental law, and planned to settle in the San Francisco Bay area after graduation. While at UW, he was a member of the Advisory Board to the Washington Lawyers for Sustainability and participated in the Technology Law Clinic & Association. In the summer of 2010, he was a Legal Extern for the Honorable Lonny R Suko, Chief Judge, Eastern District of Washington. For the summer of 2011, he had accepted an intern position at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco, and planned to spend the latter part of the summer with his former Thelen mentor at Lankford Crawford Moreno LLP in Walnut Creek. He planned to spend the fall, 2011 quarter studying in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Billy was a young man of many talents who always expressed kindness, compassion and empathy, especially for the underdog. While at NYU, he and a close friend invented and patented an electronic locating device to assist the visually impaired navigate unfamiliar surroundings. Billy enjoyed music and was an accomplished guitarist. His other interests ranged from photography and art to snowboarding, biking, hiking, and travel. He had travelled to France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Costa Rica, and planned to visit Poland and Germany before commencing his fall quarter studies in The Netherlands.

He will be missed by all who touched his life, especially his sister, Krissy, a junior at Boston University, his mother, Ginny, his father, Bill, his closest friends, Rebecca, Jeff and Jay, and many others who had the opportunity to meet him.

GIFTS IN HIS NAME MAY BE MADE TO:
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
www.nrdc.org

Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710
Tucson, AZ 85702-0710
www.biologicaldiversity.org