Happy 75th birthday,
Trammell S. Crow
Trammell,
the day we met in the spring of 2022, I found a friend who believed what I believe: that people working together can do more than any of us alone. Every tree, reef and garden we plant in your name is proof, and it will keep growing long after us.
Thank you, and happy birthday.
Read the full tribute and send Trammell a birthday card at trammellscrow.org →
A life of making room for others
Trammell S. Crow believes the environment belongs to everyone. He pledged to protect 250,000 acres of forest in Suriname, and he built one of the largest environmental gatherings in the world so that the people doing the work would have a place to be heard. Here are the first milestones along the way.
- 2011 Founds Earth Day Dallas. About 48,000 people come the first year.
- May 2016 Named the first recipient of the Texas A&M School of Public Health’s Public Health Hero Award.
- October 2016 Receives an Environmental Award at the 20th Global Green Awards in Los Angeles.
- April 2017 Earth Day Texas becomes EarthX.
- November 2018 EarthxMexico brings American and Mexican voices together in Mexico City.
- January 2019 As president of the Crow Family Foundation, he sees the family’s Asian art collection and $23 million given to UT Dallas, creating the Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas.
- April 2019 More than 177,000 people come to EarthX at Fair Park.
- April 2019 EarthX becomes a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- May 11, 2019 Receives the Ellis Island Medal of Honor on Ellis Island.
- September 2020 EarthX launches EarthxTV.
- October 2021 EarthX hosts a U.S.-Mexico Hunting and Conservation Forum in Dallas, where delegates sign a U.S.-Mexico wildlife conservation agreement.
- 2022 Rotary Reefs are set in Bocas del Toro, Panama, and one is named in his honor.
- April 21, 2023 Presents the EarthX Latin America Award to Mexico’s Foreign Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard.
- April 23, 2024 Opens and closes the Partnerships for the Goals conference at EarthX.
- Summer 2025 Receives the Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca (Order of the Aztec Eagle), the highest honor Mexico gives to a foreign citizen, at the Mexican Consulate in Dallas.
- December 10, 2025 Carboreal announces the EarthX Forest in Rovaniemi, Finland, in honor of Trammell S. Crow, its founder.
- August 6, 2026 The Trammell S. Crow Rare Tree Forest is dedicated at Dolphin Bay, Panama.
- October 2026 Gives a Power Talk, “Raíces del Futuro,” at México por el Clima in Mexico City.
- November 6, 2026 His 75th birthday: 75 websites say thank you, and programs from reefs to pollinators begin in his name.
A letter to Trammell’s family and friends around the world
Dear family and friends of Trammell,
Today Trammell turns 75, and from reefs in the Pacific to rainforests in Panama and the boreal north of Finland, people he has never met are saying thank you.
In 2011 he started Earth Day Dallas with a simple idea: give the people doing the work a place to be heard. About 48,000 people came that first year. By 2019 more than 177,000 came to Fair Park. Every April since, a prime minister, ambassadors, U.S. senators, members of Congress, company presidents and CEOs have shared the EarthX stage with scientists, students, Rotarians, farmers, fishers and founders of small projects that no one had heard of yet. Many of those projects found their first partners in Dallas. Some of them are now changing whole coastlines.
That is Trammell’s gift. He did not only protect land and water himself. He made room for thousands of others to do the same, and he treated a student with a new idea with the same respect as a minister with a budget.
So today, 75 project websites around the world carry a dedication to him, each one in its own words. And we are making a promise to go with them.
So here is our birthday gift to Trammell: a gift that will keep growing. Starting today, we are launching programs around the world in his honor, from coral reefs under the sea to trees, pollinators and the return of the Great Green Macaw. The EarthX Forest in Rovaniemi, Finland, already honors him as its founder. At Dolphin Bay in Panama, his Rare Tree Forest is helping bring back the critically endangered Great Green Macaw, and a Rotary Reef in his name is already teeming with sea life. Next come a forest for the monarch butterflies in Mexico and pollinator gardens along the flyway that the monarchs follow from Canada through the United States to Mexico. Each program will be built with local Rotary clubs and the communities around them, and each new reef, tree, garden and nest will keep adding to his birthday gift long after today.
For me, this began on April 25, 2022, the day I first met Trammell, in his backyard on Turtle Creek just after Earth Day. Every reef, forest and garden on this page has grown from that day, and I have spent every year since working to say thank you in a way that lasts.
To his family: thank you for sharing him with the world. To his friends: thank you for standing beside him. And to Trammell: happy birthday, and thank you for a stage where the people doing the work are heard.
With gratitude,
Steve Bender
on behalf of the projects in over 100 countries and the people behind them
Trammell S. Crow spent his life giving others a place to be heard. In that spirit, we have created 75 websites to showcase the people and projects creating lasting impact around the world, from forests and coral reefs to pollinator gardens, clean water and classrooms.
Is your club, school or community doing work like this? Register your project at 47817.org. If it is approved, it will be featured on one of these websites, one new project every day, in honor of Trammell.
Register your project → See the projectsThe EarthX Forest, Finland
To celebrate his 75th birthday, Carboreal is planting the EarthX Forest in Finland in honor of Trammell S. Crow, its founder. It will be registered in the Finnish Real Estate Register under his name and protected for at least 70 years, certified under ISO 14064-2 by Kiwa Inspecta.
“What better way to celebrate 75 years of an extraordinary life and environmental leadership than by creating something that will benefit the planet for generations to come? This is no mere symbolic gesture: we are creating an actual forest that sequesters carbon dioxide.”
Salomo Vilén, CEO, and Marko Kärkkäinen, CGO, Carboreal
Read the Finland forest story and our thank you
In Panama: a forest and a Rotary Reef in his name
At Dolphin Bay in Bocas del Toro, Panama, the Trammell S. Crow Rare Tree Forest was dedicated on August 6, 2026, alongside the return of the critically endangered Great Green Macaw. Just offshore, a Rotary Reef carries his name too, its Rotary wheels already teeming with fish, sponges, sharks and lobsters.
The Trammell S. Crow Rare Tree Forest, PanamaThe Rotary Reef in his name
Pollinators Without Borders
Pollinators Without Borders was launched at the Environmental Xperience at EarthX in 2026. In the years ahead, it will dedicate forests and pollinator gardens throughout the Americas to Trammell S. Crow, along the flyway the monarch butterflies follow from Canada through the United States to Mexico.
Visit Pollinators Without Borders
His birthday gift, project by project
Send Trammell a birthday card
For his 76th birthday, on November 6, 2027, we are gathering a book of thanks from the people whose lives Trammell S. Crow has touched.
If you have been to EarthX, spoken on its stage, exhibited, volunteered, or simply been inspired by him, send a birthday greeting and a short story of how he made a difference for you: up to 300 words, a favorite quote and up to two photos. Photos of you with Trammell over the years will help build the collage on the book’s cover. Every card is read. The stories that best show the lasting difference he made are chosen for the book, one page each, and the best moments are added to his timeline above. Please send yours by August 31, 2027.
- Specific: a real moment, a real person, a real result.
- Lasting: something that grew because of Trammell or EarthX, such as a project, a job, a partnership or a friendship.
- True and in your own words, up to 300 words.
- Respectful, with photos that everyone in them is happy to share.
Trammell is known for his Earth marbles. If you were fortunate enough to be given one, and you have photos of it, please send those too. They will be gathered into an Earth marble collage in the book.
Send your card at trammellscrow.org
Have a project to share? If you wish, you can also enter a project to be considered for the Countdown to EarthX and showcased on one of our partner websites, in honor of Trammell. Every project is reviewed, and submission is not a guarantee of publication.
Come to Dallas and continue the storyThis tribute is also an invitation. Come see the stage Trammell built, where the people doing the work are heard. Bring your project, meet the people behind projects from around the world, thank Trammell in person, and help write the next chapter of his story. One Planet. One Mission.
Register at EarthX.org →Our thank you
A tribute to our inspiration, Trammell S. Crow: “This site is dedicated to the Dallas businessman who proved that conservation belongs to everyone.”
A remarkable life. A lasting legacy. Reefs, forests, pollinators and wildlife that will grow for generations. Happy birthday, Trammell.