The year was 1991, Congress had just approved changes to the Clean Air Act, and Chet Wayland was joining EPA.
It was a confluence of events that would prove pivotal both for Wayland and the American public.
For Wayland, it yielded an almost 34-year career that ended with his retirement in December as a top air office manager. During that tenure, largely out of public view, he shaped implementation of a statute that has led to less pollution, even as the national economy continued to grow.
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At a time when the federal workforce is derided as unproductive by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, the White House’s anointed efficiency expert, Wayland offered an implicit rebuke.
