Professor White pioneered work in natural hazards field

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 7, 2006 at midnight

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Gilbert Fowler White, known internationally as the "father of floodplain management," died Thursday at his home in Boulder.

Mr. White, one of the most distinguished and acclaimed professors to teach at the University of Colorado, was 94. He had been in declining health for the past year.

Mr. White's pioneering work in the field of natural hazards changed the way people deal with nature.

He is credited by many with making the world safer to inhabit.

"Floods are 'acts of God,' but flood losses are largely acts of man," he wrote in his 1942 doctoral dissertation, since labeled the most influential ever written by an American geographer.

Mr. White joined the CU faculty in 1970 as a professor of geography and director of the Institute of Behavioral Science and remained active in academic work into his 90s.

He founded CU's Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, the nation's leading repository of knowledge on human behavior in disasters, in 1974.

"Professor White's work made a tremendous contribution to Colorado, the nation and the world, and he will be sorely missed from Boulder and beyond," said CU President Hank Brown.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison said, "Mr. White was a pioneer in a field which protects people and their homes.

"His legacy is a program that keeps people safe, protects the environment and makes smart investments in mitigation activities at all levels of government."

Mr. White was born on Nov. 26, 1911, in Hyde Park, Ill., and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago.

He studied the Mississippi River Basin for the federal government as a graduate student in the late 1930s, when many planners followed a flood-control policy based on dam construction.

Mr. White questioned the impact of such projects and suggested alternatives that protected people as well as floodplain ecosystems.

After leaving the federal government in the 1930s, Mr. White never again had to apply for another job, according to Robert E. Hinshaw, who wrote a biography of Mr. White published this year, Living With Nature's Extremes.

He never again worked for the federal government, although he could easily have held positions of global importance, according to Hinshaw.

"He has refused to let himself be drawn into a government position that would force him to use a more formal decision-making process," and his personal beliefs were behind that decision, said Hinshaw, former chairman of the CU-Denver anthropology department.

Strongly attracted by the tenets of the Religious Society of Friends since his student days, Mr. White espoused pacifism and became a Quaker at the outbreak of World War II.

In 1942, he went to France to do relief work with the American Friends Service Committee. He was taken a prisoner of war the following year and held in Germany. After being exchanged in 1944, he returned to become assistant executive secretary of the AFSC.

Mr. White married Anne Elizabeth Underwood in 1944. She worked with him on many research projects, including a pioneering study of domestic water use in East Africa. She died in 1989.

Mr. White accepted the presidency of Haverford College in Haverford, Pa., in 1946, becoming the youngest college president in the country.

He returned to the University of Chicago in 1955 to become a professor and chairman of the geography department.

He moved to the University of Colorado in 1970.

"Gilbert excelled in his kindness and in his interest in other people," said John Huyler, of Boulder, a longtime friend and fellow Quaker.

"Although he was an internationally recognized scientist and a leader, he was a man of deep humility, always interested in young people. He never preached, he led by example and he brought out the best in everyone."

Another Boulder Quaker whose friendship with Mr. White also goes back about 30 years, Mary Hey, fondly remembers him for his "game" attitude toward life.

"Even the last time I spoke to him, which was just a few days ago, his comment was, 'So what have you been doing?' " Hey recalled.

"His direction was toward caring about what others are up to. He was not one to brag. He had a remarkable gift for suggesting and promoting other people's ideas. He lifted those around him."

Mr. White was the Gustavson Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography at CU and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

His numerous awards include the nation's highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science, presented in 2000.

"His basic message was that we need to work with the environment and adapt to it, and not simply try to control it through technology," said his son, Will White, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

"That's the central theme that came very early in his work, and it also resonated with his leadership in the environmental area."

His son also emphasized Mr. White's belief in international cooperation, as exemplified by his service as chairman of the Committee on Sustainable Water Supplies for the Middle East National Research Council, 1996-1999, which Will White described as "an enterprise to bring together Israelis, Palestinian and Jordanian scientists to work on water problems at a time when these people were just at daggers with each other.

"He got them to sit down and talk cooperatively about how they could move things forward."

In addition to son Will White, he is survived by his second wife, Claire Sheridan, daughters Mary White, of Boulder, and Frances Chapin, of Edmonds, Wash.; stepchildren Monika Profitt, of Seattle, and Daniel Profitt, of Boulder; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Nov. 11 at A Spice of Life Event Center, 5706 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder.

Brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742

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