Gordon McBean was an Environment Canada scientist (1970-88), UBC Professor (1988-94), Chair World Climate Research Program (1988-94)(Vice-Chair, 1986-88). As Chair, he helped to create: the IPCC and, to enhance global environmental science, the IAI (Councilor, 1995-00; Vice President, 1998-00) and START (Board, 2004-15; Chair, 2009-15). He was Assistant Deputy Minister, Environment Canada (1994-00) and since 2000, Western University Professor, Department of Geography and Environment and Policy Chair, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
For the International Council for Science, he chaired the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Planning Group (2006-8) and Scientific Committee (2009-11). In 2011, he was elected as ICSU President-elect and was President (2014-2018). As ICSU President, he led the S&T Major Group in negotiations of Global Agenda components and was Future Earth Governing Council (member, 2014-18; Co-Chair 2016-18). He co-led the merger with International Social Sciences Council to create the International Science Council in 2018. Between 2011-present, he made 202 international conference presentations, with about 97 in his ICSU position. His Honours include: Order of Canada; 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for IPCC roles; 2015 AGU Ambassador Award; 2016 AMS Cleveland Abbe Award; 2017 International Meteorological Organization Prize; and Fellow: ISC, IUGG, IAFoST, RSC, AGU, AMS, CMOS.