Adamkus, Valdas V.

In 1997 Valdas Adamkus retired from his post at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after nearly 30 years--the longest tenure of any senior executive at the agency--with the expressed intention of working on his golf game. Soon afterward, however, it seemed that golf would have to wait, because in February 1998 the unassuming 71-year-old career bureaucrat, a citizen of the United