Speaker Biographies

Stanley Selengut

President, Maho Bay Camps

Stanley Selengut is a civil engineer specializing in resort development. His expertise in site-sensitive development and sustainable resort design led to his appointment to the National Park System Advisory Board by Bruce Babbitt, then Secretary of the Interior. The Board is comprised of 12 experts in various fields who have demonstrated commitment to the mission of the National Park Service. Selengut also served as the Chair for the Committee on Environmental Leadership and Sustainability in the National Park Service (NPS). At the NPS leadership conference, "Discovery 2000," a key focus orchestrated by Selengut was a full-size ecotent and trash-re-manufacturing exhibit, which demonstrated environmental practices possible throughout the NPS.

Selengut's varied career began in the 1950's when he created a large-volume importing company specializing in South American native crafts. The company (Piñata Party) grew to service 1,100 stores and employed over 2,000 Andean Indians. Complete villages existed on revenues from their woolen, leather and fur accessories. Selenguts' solutions to the developmental problems of these villages led him to serve as a consultant to the Kennedy Administration. He completed 14 contracts in Latin America working for the State Department and then worked as staff consultant in Industrial Development for the Office of Economic Opportunity. Subsequently, he opened a design consulting firm.

Selengut's work in poverty areas stimulated an interest in early childhood learning products. He consulted for firms such as General Learning Corp., Time-Life, and General Electric where he pioneered new teaching methods. He then designed and manufactured an innovative, award-winning furniture and accessory system, which allowed a child the control of their room environment. A complete system is in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

A consulting assignment on low-income housing for the Rockefeller Brothers led Selengut to the Virgin Islands National Park on St. John. Here he was faced with the challenge of developing an economically viable resort facility compatible with National Park mandates. The 114 unit Maho Bay Campground is not only environmentally responsible but also achieves a 95% high-season occupancy and is one of the most profitable businesses on St. John. Maho now has an incredible restaurant running inside the camp site along with a yoga pavilion and a recycling center that introduces art from "trash" program. Patrons can learn glassblowing, clay making and display them in the new Art Gallery where they are sold to other guests or have them shipped directly to their homes. He has developed a research resort adjacent to Maho Bay Campgrounds. This resort is called Harmony: A Center for the Study of Sustainable Resort Development. The name reflects the goal: to bring together the latest ecological ideas, designs and ttechnologies in a vacation community that is the world's first luxury resort to operate exclusively on sun and wind power. Estate Concordia and the Concordia Ecotents a resort project where he combined the simplicity of Maho's canvas tent-cottages with state-of-the-art environmental technologies: solar energy for electricity, space-age developed roofing materials that reflect heat yet transmits light, utilization of rain water in cisterns delivered by foot pumps and composting toilets. The completed units are self-sustaining and minimize the need for outside non-renewable resources. With minimum impact on both the land and the community infrastructure, the Concordia Ecotents have become models for sensitive site development. The land has new paved roads and has expanded greater to accommodate the growing demand to all type of visitors. Along with its elevated walkways new tents will accommodate for the handicapped accessibility.

Environmental education is one of his top priorities. He has spoken before hundreds of schools and conferences worldwide and uses his properties for workshops for Virgin Island school children and educational institutions nationwide. He has served as a Founding Board Member of The International Ecotourism Society from 1991 until 2004 and on the National Council of the National Parks and Conservation Association from 1995 to 1998.