Werner Fornos


Werner Fornos served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and was an international advocate for global population control.
He was born Werner Horst Farenhold in Leipzig, Germany and was separated from his family during World War II when an Allied bombing of his apartment building left him trapped under rubble for three days. He made a number of escape attempts to the United States which failed before finally reaching the U.S. in a U.S. transport plane's baggage section and getting to Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. He was taken in by Elizabeth L. Fornos and her husband, Jaime Fornos and adopted by them after gaining American citizenship by an act of Congress.
Fornos ran for, and won, a seat at the Maryland House of Delegates in 1967 and served as a Democrat there until 1970. In 1970, he became the assistant secretary for manpower in Maryland's Department of Employment and Social Services. He became the president of the Population Institute in 1982 and was an advocate for world population stabilization until his retirement in 2005 from the Institute. He then established the Global Population Education where he lectured worldwide and wrote about international population, development and women's rights.

Recognition

Fornos received the Humanist of the Year Award of the American Humanist Association in 1991 and the United States Population Award in 2003. He received the Order of the Merit of Germany in 2000 and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Maryland. For three years he was named as one of the 100 most influential persons by the Earth Times.