John C. Cruden, the departing legend at the Environmental and Natural Resources Division, received a sendoff gift in the true spirit of his division: a kayak.
The bright yellow boat, which four ENRD section chiefs carried on their backs through the Justice Department’s Great Hall to present to Cruden, was far from the only honor bestowed on the respected DOJ veteran during the ceremony. Current and former colleagues heaped accolades and awards on Cruden, describing Cruden as one of the best lawyers to ever work for the department, both for his efforts on environmental issues and for his mentorship of generations of DOJ employees.
Longtime ENRD leader John Cruden is honored upon his retirement.
“He has left an indelible mark on the Department. He has made the Department stronger” Attorney General Eric Holder said. Holder added that it is a testament to Cruden’s character that what he is most proud of is not his work on high-profile environmental cases, but his mentoring of those “whose lives he has touched and who have inspired his work.”
Holder was joined at the retirement ceremony by other top leaders of the DOJ, including Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, and Assistant Attorney General Ignacia S. Moreno, who all had words of high praise for Cruden.
Cruden’s ceremony packed the Great Hall with more than 450 friends, family and colleagues. Dozens of former ENRD employees returned to honor Cruden’s departure.
It is no wonder that so many ENRD workers know Cruden, as he has been with the division since 1991, when he joined as chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section, and has been a Deputy Assistant Attorney General since 1995. Prior to his DOJ service, Cruden had a long career in the military, graduating from West Point and serving in special forces units in Vietnam and as a military lawyer. He took his Law School Admissions Test in Saigon, and Holder joked that Cruden showed up to the test armed with hand grenades rather than the pencils and paper of more conventional budding lawyers.
Bruce Gelber, the current chief of the enforcement section, recalled that when the section’s attorneys first heard that their new boss was going to be an army man from West Point, “we were worried. Our section wasn’t used to taking orders and we had heard that he didn’t know a lot about environmental law.”
Cruden’s work ethic and desire to learn quickly fixed that, his colleague said, and he turned out to be the “best man for the job.”
During his tenure, the division was at the forefront of the legal responses to both the Exxon-Valdez and the BP oil spills, as well as the Love Canal case in Niagara Falls, New York. And in 2009, the ENRD was rated as the #1 best place to work in the federal government, at a time when Cruden was serving as the Acting Assistant Attorney General.
Cruden did not speak until near the end of the 2-hour ceremony.
“It’s been quite a ride. I see my whole life here before me,” Cruden said.
Still, Cruden’s career with environmental law is not over. He is retiring from the DOJ, but will continue work on environmental issues at the research and education center, the Environmental Law Institute. Starting Thursday, Gelber will be taking over as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Division.
