Scgis 1997 Founding Board Member: Steve Beckwitt
1997 Data: Steve Beckwitt, Sierra Biodiversity Inst CA
(Photo: Steve Beckwitt (R) and Peter Morrison (L) at late 90's SCGIS conference in their role as founding board members)
My earliest, and still sharpest memory of my first year at esri was getting a call from Jack’s office one morning in June 1989 asking me to join him at the patio, which was just 2 round metal tables in front of the main admin building at the time. Jack was sitting with a smiling fellow with Einstein hair and a younger version of same by his side. They were introduced as Steve and Eric Beckwitt, his son, here to do a story for the “Whole Earth Review”. Whole Earth Review was the quarterly journal that Stewart Brand spun off after the success of the Whole Earth Catalog of the 1970’s. That Catalog was the delight, aspiration and dream of every environmentalist, laying out in great detail and inspiring description every tool, device and garment needed to abandon civilized life and move out of the city, off the grid and away from technology. By contrast, the Review was the philosophical successor, diving into newer developments like “deep ecology” and “sustainable futures”. Steve and I became fast friends, brothers from another mother, right down to dropping out of a promising academic physics career in order to head off to the wilderness to pursue conservation. Steve had gone from UC Berkeley to the Sierra Foothills, while I had gone from UC Santa Cruz to Africa and Latin America. Jack requested that I do whatever was needed to support Steve and provide a place for his work at Esri, and thus began a 30-year collaboration. At first we helped him with his “Sierra Biodiversity Institute” and its work saving ancient forests in the early 90’s. More recently, Steve has served the Esri Conservation Program with advice and grantmaking support. You can read a more detailed biography of his life and work at the first link below.
Selected by Esri as a “ GIS Hero” in 2010 for his work saving the California’s Ancient Forests and supporting Tibetan Conservation Planning.
https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall10articles/environmental-advocate.html
Article about the Tibetan Planning work
