REFLECTIONS EARTH DAY 1970-1990 : ‘My perspective has changed. It is going to take a major effort.’ : James M. Lents is executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Twenty years ago, Jim Lents was just breaking into the pollution control business. He remembers reading about Earth Day, but didn’t do anything to mark the occasion. As he recalls, “I don’t think there were any ceremonies in Tullahoma, Tenn.”

At the time, Lents was a rocket combustion expert at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. But, with the environmental movement gaining momentum, he found himself becoming more interested in emissions than missiles. He even began to teach courses on air pollution control at the Space Institute.

Lents was always interested in the environment. While some kids would wonder why the sky was blue, Lents the schoolboy questioned why the air in his hometown of Knoxville was “sooty and smelled.”

In 1971, Lents, who by then held a doctorate in physics, thought it was time for a change. He took a job as technical director of the Air Pollution Control Bureau in Chattanooga and launched a career that he says has grown “infinitely more complex” with each new job.

“I now find myself, 20 years later, looking at the worst (pollution) problem in the United States and the most complex problem in the United States in one of the fastest-growing areas of the United States,” he said.

Today, as the tough-minded boss of the AQMD, the largest regional air pollution control agency in the nation, the 47-year-old Lents is the chief architect of the district’s broad new effort to not only remove the brown gunk from our skies but to confront such worldwide environmental problems as global warming.

Lents said his views on battling air pollution have changed dramatically since the first Earth Day.

“I thought back in 1970 that we could deal with the problem within a decade,” he said. “My perspective has changed in recognizing that a solution is probably not a few years and a few dollars away. It probably is 20 years and a lot of dollars in the development of new technology. It is going to take a major effort.”