Joseph H. Engbeck

When I left home for the university, my cousin Joseph ushered me out of the nest, offering me a room for the summer in the Engebeck home, and arranging for my first job as a biologist. Years before, he had explained his love for the redwoods he had emblematically planted at the corner of his corner lot. Years later, Joseph arranged for me to join him on the Board of Save the Bay. His gentle inculcation of the value of community service and the urgency of conservation action are among the most...

I was looking back on UC Berkeley years tonight and thought I'd just check on Joe Engbeck, the teaching assistant who watched over me when I was taking a short story writing class under Professor Thomas Parkinson. After I had submitted a few stories, they apparently were good enough or bad enough that Parkinson became suspicious and tasked Joe to find out if I was plagiarizing. I still have some of those stories, marked up by Joe's pencil. My wife Stephanie and I became close friends with...

I feel privileged to have known and worked with Joe as friend, colleague, and neighbor. Among his many wonderful traits was his natural talent for writing with both sophistication and folksiness. We owe a lot to Joe for setting the tone of outreach of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, of which he was a founding member. I will miss you, Joe.