Horst M. Rechelbacher (1941 – February 15, 2014) was an Austrian American businessman who was the founder of the cosmetics company Aveda Corporation and Intelligent Nutrients.
In 1992, along with his partner Kiran, he attended the Earth Summit, where three key agreements occurred: the Climate Change Convention, a precursor to the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity and an Intellectual Property Rights accord for indigenous peoples that included preventing actions that could be deemed culturally inappropriate and/or cause environmental destruction.
Through this convention, Rechelbacher forged a relationship with the Brazilian Yawanawa tribe and began a project cultivating uruku for its pigment and replanting seedlings in deforested areas.
As well as a private estate and a company retreat, the Osceola, Wisconsin, property serves as an organic farm cultivating flowers and plants while also operating a distillery for the IN products.
Horst lived and worked with his long-time companion, wife,[2] and former vice president of marketing and creative for Aveda, Kiran Stordalen.