The man Time magazine called the "Hero for the Planet" joined UMR faculty, students and an ecologically minded alumnus to dedicate the campus’s newest facility for environmental research.

A new greenhouse at UMR will aid environmental research, such as studies on the use a poplar trees to help rid soils of contaminants.

Peter Raven, executive director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and a leading advocate for conservation, discussed the importance of a sustainable environment during the spring 2005 public ceremony to dedicate the Chester and Evelyn Baker Greenhouse, located on the roof of the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building.

The greenhouse was made possible in part to a $100,000 donation by Chester Baker, a 1955 civil engineering graduate.

"Being a graduate of civil engineering, I’ve often wanted to do something for the school," Baker says, so he chose a gift to help the civil engineering department’s environmental research at UMR. "My wife, Evelyn, passed away in 1995 and she always loved flowers," Baker says. "I’m sure she would have been pleased."

The new greenhouse will provide an additional research facility for UMR undergraduates enrolled in the state’s first environmental engineering degree program, one of the few available in the Midwest.

The new greenhouse will provide an additional research facility for UMR undergraduates enrolled in the state’s first environmental engineering degree program, one of the few available in the Midwest.

"Being problem-solvers as engineers, defining the problem is the first step," says Joel Burken, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at UMR. "If we don’t understand the science and the problem, there’s very little chance that we can come up with a good solution."

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Environmental engineering at UMR