Dr. Bruce Kendall: Environmental Knowledge and Action
We are blessed in Santa Barbara by having in our midst one of our country’s—and the world’s—great universities, the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). Among UCSB's many outstanding programs is its innovative Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. CEC has been benefitting for many years from extensive interactions with Bren's leadership, faculty and students. Our featured Legacy donor this month, Dr. Bruce Kendall, is a Professor and Associate Dean at the Bren School.
Bruce was born in North Carolina, but at the tender age of four, his parents took him to Zambia where his father worked for six years as a fisheries biologist on Lake Tanganyika. This early experience, as well as hiking and camping in the Northeastern and Western US throughout his teenage years, imbued Bruce with a deep love of the outdoors. He attended Williams College in Massachusetts, where he joined the Outing Club and majored in physics and environmental studies. He went on to the University of Arizona and earned a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Bruce worked for a time at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, where he participated in the institute’s research and programs designed to replace the unsustainable industrial approach to agriculture that dominates the Great Plains with agricultural practices based on perennial crops that mimic the ecosystems of the Prairies—an effort now often referred to as regenerative agriculture (this research effort is now coming to fruition with the development of Kernza®, the first perennial grain crop). Bruce joined UCSB in 1996 and became a faculty member of the Bren School two years later. His research is devoted to understanding the forces that threaten rare species with extinction and that increase their resilience, working with a wide range of species, including birds, plants, terrestrial vertebrates, and aquatic organisms.
Bruce met his late wife Michelle in Santa Barbara. Michelle was a passionate environmentalist, to the point that she was named by her high school English teacher as “most likely to die for Greenpeace.” Michelle was instrumental in helping establish Earth Day celebrations at Santa Barbara High School and worked for the Sea Center, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and the Nature Conservancy. Sadly, Michelle passed away in 2021 after a long and very brave battle with cancer. She devoted the last years of her life to advancing research on the medicinal properties of cannabis (her story is documented at schedule1movie.com).
Bruce served for six years on CEC’s Board of Directors and was an important influence in developing CEC's new strategic plan. After retiring from the board, he joined the organization's President’s Council of major supporters. We are profoundly grateful to Bruce for designating a significant portion of his estate for CEC. He says that he supports CEC so strongly because of the organization's track record of “achieving outsized results by collaborating effectively with a broad range of regional partners and scaling up local policy innovations to the region, the state, and beyond.”
Please consider joining Bruce and the many other distinguished members of the Livable World Legacy Society. Becoming a member is as easy as making a phone call, mailing a note, or sending an email to let us know that you are interested in exploring options for making a legacy gift, or to let us know that you have already provided for CEC in your estate. Please contact Karl Hutterer, Legacy Giving Advisor, by calling 805-453-8162 or emailing khutterer@cecmail.org for a no-obligation confidential conversation. You can also learn more about legacy giving options by exploring our website.
