Awards
Lasting environmental protection is earned through a synergy of local activism and institutional leadership, which is why the Michigan Environmental Council annually bestows a pair of awards: One honoring grassroots leadership and the other recognizing distinguished vision by public or private sector leaders. Below is more information about these two awards and the environmental leaders who have received them:
Petoskey Prize for Grassroots Leadership
MEC inaugerated the Petoskey Prize for Grassroots Leadership in 2001. The prize is given annually to individuals whose commitment, creativity and courage have inspired others to safeguard Michigan's air, land and water for future generations. Winners are able to designate $5,000 to the Michigan environmental organization of their choice.
Download 2008 application
2007 Recipient: Lynn Henning
 Lynn Henning was a content farmer. Then massive, polluting, mega-farms surrounded her family home near rural Hudson, making the air putrid, turning creeks into open sewers and operating with virtual impunity. Henning fought back. She taught herself to track and document pollution. She learned law, chemistry, biology and bureaucracy. She took on the corporate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) owners, state regulators and local officials, forcing them to confront the problem. She has become the epitome of a grassroots environmental leader, and is the recipient of the Michigan Environmental Council’s 2007 Petoskey Prize for Environmental Leadership. As vice chair of Environmentally Concerned Citizens for South Central Michigan and a water sentinel with the Sierra Club’s Michigan Chapter, Henning now monitors CAFOs statewide and trains others from across the Midwest. Her diligence has led to more than 200 Clean Water Act citations against Michigan CAFOs in recent years, and progress toward changing the laws and rules safeguarding public water and air.
2006 Recipient: Don A. Griffin
 Don A. Griffin worked for decades to restore and protect the Detroit River. He passed away Nov. 23, 2005, but left behind a legacy of environmental stewardship and enlightened activism. Griffin helped found the Friends of the Detroit River 15 years ago and was instrumental in a long battle to protect the Humbug Marsh from condominiums and other development that would have wrecked the last significant coastal wetland on the U.S. side of the river. The marsh is now the centerpiece of a thriving Detroit International Wildlife Refuge and an example of the victories that can be achieved with tenacious defense of important natural resources.
2005 Recipient: Michelle Hurd Riddick
 From bringing recycling to Saginaw to defending children against lead poisoning and demanding cleanup of toxic dioxin, Michelle Hurd Riddick, an emergency nurse by profession, has steadfastly fought to protect Michigan’s residents and natural resources for more than a decade.Through education, lobbying and old-fashioned organizing, Hurd Riddick and her colleagues have pressed the State of Michigan and Dow Chemical Corporation to inform and protect the thousands of people living in an area of the Tittabawassee River floodplain contaminated with dangerous levels of dioxin. In doing so, she has spoken truth to power in the face of great pressure to be silent and demonstrated the power of a determined individual to make a difference.
2004 Recipient: Terry Swier
Terry Swier and her colleagues at Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, has engaged in a “David and Goliath” struggle to challenge a multinational corporation’s right to withdraw and bottle water in Mecosta County. With tenacious organizing skills, Swier has led efforts to enlist some 1,800 members of the community in a formidable grassroots campaign and to raise $400,000 for the effort, largely through community-based techniques such as bake sales, yard sales, and car washes. In the process, she is reshaping the water rights debate in our state to better reflect the public’s interest in Michigan’s most important natural resource.
2003 Recipient: Diane Hebert
Diane Hebert is recognized for her "25 years of heroic, grassroots organizing and leadership fighting for the people and community of Midland, Mich." Midland — home to the largest chemical company in the world — is a healthier place thanks to Diane's tireless efforts. The founder of Environmental Health Watch, she has increased public awareness of the health hazards of dioxin through high-profile events, unflagging advocacy and the promotion of science in the public interest. She brought dioxin issues to the attention of the media and forced direct action requiring corporate and governmental accountability for toxic pollution in Midland.
2002 Recipients: Alison & David Swan
Alison and David Swan moved to West Michigan in the early 1990s and quickly made the Saugatuck State Park their regular walking site. When they heard that the City of Hollard, Laketown Township and Allegan County had applied to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for land exchanges which would allow them to build a water intake, pumping station, pipeline and treatment plant within the boundaries of Saugatuck Dunes State Park, the Swans immediately took action and formed the Concerned Citizens for Saugatuck Duns State Park, which continunes to grow and fight to protect the precious resource. Their grassroots movement to stop the proposed facility pulled together 600 people, making the issue impossible for lakeshore citizens and politicians to ignore.
2001 Recipient (inaugeral winner): Debbie Romak
Debbie Romak fought for 11 years to ban commercial hazardous waste injection wells in Romulus. MEC recognizes her expertise in hazardous waste injection; her success in persuading local, state and federal officials to oppose these wells; her commitment to public service; and her efforts to found a new environmental organization, Romulus Environmentalists Care About People (RECAP).
Helen & William Milliken Distinguished Service Award
The Helen & William Milliken Distinguished Service Award recognizes individuals who show outstanding leadership, enduring commitment and extraordinary public service in protecting natural resources at the local, state and national levels.
2007 Recipient: Mary C. Brown
 Mary C. Brown served 18 years in the state legislature where she skillfully blended visionary principles with pragmatic strategies to realize gains in natural resource policies. It was the political career of a public servant whose depth of knowledge was unparalleled on an array of issues including social justice, environmental stewardship, clean air and gender equity. Her hands-on reputation became legendary among her colleagues in the State House. They knew exactly what to do when unfamiliar legislation came up for a hurried vote: Ask Mary, she’ll know all about it. As a result, here fingerprints remain on dozens of important state laws that still provide a framework for enlightened resource stewardship. Retirement from the legislature in 1994 changed the venue where she practices her particular brand of activism, but not her tenacious approach. Her lifelong passion for working with the Girl Scouts continues. She also is on the boards of the State YMCA, the Michigan Environmental Council, American Lung Association, and is a state Natural Resources Commission member. She is a founding member of the Kalamazoo Environmental Council and the Coalition for Urban Redevelopment in Kalamazoo.
2006 Recipient: Congressman Vernon Ehlers (R-Grand Rapids)
 Vernon Ehlers embraced the conservation philosophies of President Theodore Roosevelt during his acceptance speech, invoking Roosevelt’s crusade for stewardship before an audience of friends, colleagues and constituents. Ehlers, a physicist and one of the few scientists in Congress, earned the award by standing up for conservation principles, often leading other moderate Republicans to tip the scales in favor of environmental protection on close votes. He has voted consistently for fuel economy standards that protect the air and reduce dependence on foreign oil, worked to keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge safe from invasive drilling, and consistently championed bills and budgets to establish firewalls against Great Lakes pollution and invasive species. “Vern has been a friend and ally to common-sense approaches to creating sound environmental policy,” MEC President Lana Pollack said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out clean air and water is essential to the economy and public health, but it doesn’t hurt to have a scientist like Vern on the job in Washington.”
2005 Recipient: Congressman John D. Dingell (D-Dearborn)
John D. Dingell has served Michigan and the nation for five decades as a legislative champion for the environment. He was the driving force behind the creation of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge and is resolutely fighting current attempts to roll back important air and water protections. While the Milliken Award is not a lifetime achievement award, conservation and environmental advocates applauded Congressman Dingell’s historic work to defeat the National Timber Supply Act and his exceptional leadership in passing the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.
2004 Recipient: Peter Karmanos, Jr.
Compuware co-founder Peter Karmanos, Jr. placed a winning bet on Detroit by investing $400 million in a magnificent new 1.1 million square foot downtown headquarters for Michigan’s largest technology company and by leading the restoration of historic Campus Martius. In doing so, he not only has brought thousands of new jobs into the heart of the city and sparked a building boom that is changing its reputation, but also is helping to reshape land-use patterns in the region in a sensible and sustainable direction.
2003 Recipient: Marlene "Marty" Fluharty
As Executive Director of the Americana Foundation, Marty has provided national leadership on land use reform, farmland preservation, growth management and other environmental issues for 34 years. She has served on the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, the Michigan Environmental Review Board, and the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council. Currently, she is a member of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Advisory Council. A dedicated Sierra Club volunteer and current President of the Sierra Club Foundation, Marty was honored with the Milliken Award for "being a role model to women, environmental professionals, and government officials by demonstrating unwavering integrity, a deep love of nature, an easy manner, and quiet, skillful advocacy.
2002 Recipient: Peter M. Wege
Peter Wege is a Grand Rapids businessman, philanthropist, gather and heralded environmental visionary. Wege has been devoted to cleaning up the environment and saving the Great Lakes for decades. Steelcase, the office furniture company that Wege's father and partners started in 1912, is now the largest office furniture manufacturer in the world and recycles close to 88 percent of its materials. Wege's book, Economicology: The Eleventh Commandment, conveys the important connections between ecology and economy. Wege's many contributions to our Great Lakes State include:
- Founding the Center for Environmental Study, an organization in Grand Rapids dedicated to increasing public awareness of the environment, in 1969.
- Serving as Chairman of the National Pollution and Prevention Center at the University of Michigan.
- Chairing the Advisory Board for the Franciscan Life Process Center, a group of Franciscan sisters committed to living in harmony with the natural world and educating others about ecology and spirituality.
- Endowing the Peter M. Wege Chair of Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment.
- Providing millions of dollars in support of environmental protection and conservation initiatives through the Wege Foundation, which he created in 1967.
2001 Recipient: Peter W. Stroh
Peter W. Stroh is the architect of the Detroit River's designation as an American Heritage River. This follows his remarkable history of brownfield investment in redeveloping Detroit; his considerable contributions to the Nature Conservancy's work in saving Michigan's landscape; and his leadership rile in founding Conservation International.
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