Larry Chalfan

Executive Director, Zero Waste Alliance

Larry Chalfan is the former President and CEO of Oki Semiconductor Manufacturing, the first business in Oregon to be certified to ISO 14001. Following certification, the company began to integrate Natural Step principles for a sustainable future into the decision making process of the management system. After a 30 year career in the semiconductor industry Larry founded the ZWA in 1999 and is currently its Executive Director. The ZWA was founded to be a resource center to assist organizations that wish to improve competitiveness by becoming more ecologically sustainable. The ZWA focuses on the application of the tools of industrial ecology to work toward a cyclical industrial system based on nature’s model.

Larry was awarded the Oregon Governor’s Sustainable Leadership Award and was appointed to the Oregon State University Engineering Hall of Fame in 1998. Larry is on the board of the Center for Watershed and Community Health and the advisory board of the Oregon Natural Step Network.

Larry received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Oregon State University.