FRANK LOY

Former Under secretary of state for global affairs

Former Board Chair at Environmental Defense Fund

Frank Loy was Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 1998 to January 2001.  His portfolio included human rights, the promotion of democracy, refugee issues, international law enforcement and counter-narcotics, and the environment.  He served as chief U.S. climate negotiator.  

He was a senior official in the State Department in two earlier administrations., as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs, and Director of the Office of Refugee Affairs.  From 1981 to 1995 he was president of The German Marshall Fund of the U.S., an American foundation that dealt with political, economic and environmental issues concerning the U.S. and Europe.  From 1989 on most of GMF’s program was focused on the Central and Eastern European nations that had been under Soviet domination.

From 1970 to 1979 he was engaged in the business sector, first as Senior Vice President of Pan American Airways and then in the successful effort to bring the bankrupt Penn Central Transportation Co., then the largest bankruptcy in U.S history, out of bankruptcy.  He ended as president of the solvent, New York Stock Exchange-listed successor company. He has been chair of numerous non-profit boards, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, Resources for the Future, and PSI, a family planning and health organization operating in almost 60 developing countries.  He remains currently on the boards of The Nature Conservancy, EDF, and RFF, and a number of climate change-related organizations.

He is a graduate of UCLA and the Harvard Law School. He is married to Dale Haven Loy, a painter, and has two children and four grandchildren.

Frank E. Loy

Board of Directors Chair