William Hurrle scholarship program

Donation Information

Annual Appeal
Donations to the scholarship program will support the growth and development of the Better Buildings conference by increasing its capacity to make conferences accessible to a larger number of participants. One hundred percent of your contribution to the scholarship program goes directly to providing scholarships to the Better Buildings conference. For U.S. taxpayers, your contribution is fully tax-deductible.

Donate to the William Hurrle Scholarship Program

Scholarship application

Deadline
The application deadline was December 31, 2011. Scholarship recipients will be notified by January 31, 2012.

Questions
Please contact Kristi Kaiser at kkaiser@ecw.org or 608.238.8276 x135.

About Bill Hurrle

William "Bill" Hurrle, a writer, educator and builder, was born June 24, 1940, in Rochester, MN. Believing that reducing dependence upon carbon-based fuels begins at home, he strove for 35 years to build high performance and healthy houses.

Through his business, Bay Area Home Performance, he was a consultant for the Wisconsin Energy Star program, specializing in solar siting, design, and diagnostics as well as green building. This consultancy developed out of his home building and environmental health business, Community Builders, which he founded in 1974. His professional goals were to improve the energy efficiency of homes as well as to popularize solar electric and solar hot water systems. He developed pioneering examples of residential-scaled solutions for power, heat, and comfort that use traditional, carbon-based resources lightly.

Bill was an active member of several associations, including the Energy & Environmental Building Alliance, the Midwest Renewable Energy Association and the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance. In the late '70s, he was chairman of the Wisconsin Solar Energy Resources Association. He received several awards including: NAHB 1996 Energy Efficient Home, Cold Climate Award; Oneida Nation Certificate of Achievement for work with renewable energy; and the Focus on Energy, Renewable Energy award, "For taking the long view in renewable energy and building science transformation."

Bill died of esophageal cancer on May 2, 2009, at the home he built with his wife, Beverly Watkins, in New Franken, Wisconsin.