John Atwater "Jb" Bradley

1931 - 2021

John "JB" Atwater Bradley
John Atwater Bradley died on February 23, 2021
Born in Brooklyn Heights, NY to Eleanor Mackenzie Johnson and Cornelius Bradley, John attended Brooklyn Technical High school followed by undergraduate studies at Princeton University. After college, he spent two years of flight training in the Air Force followed by graduate work in philosophy, law and theology at Yale and Union Theological Seminary. He then launched a worldwide entrepreneurial career, which included founding, fund-raising and consulting for non-profit institutions, business, industry, foundations, and governments; pooling management talent and investment capital; and serving as an officer and director of a handful of consulting firms, foundations, and corporations including acting as an adjunct in foreign relations for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960s - 1970s.
Bradley married Marilyn Monteith Bower, a British Fashion Model in 1965 and in 1967 they welcomed twins, David Atwater Bradley and Philip Mackenzie Bradley. Camilla Kerr Bradley was born later in 1976.
One of his most successful companies, Atwater Bradley & Partners was founded to provide consulting services, worldwide, to business and governments. Government clients included Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Guiana, Hongkong, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and Venezuela as well as government agencies in several other countries.
With offices in Beirut, Caracas, The Hague, London and New York, the Atwater Bradley Consulting Group conducted assignments for a diverse spectrum of U. S. based multinational companies, including American (ABC), Columbia (CBS), National (NBC) Broadcasting Systems, Colgate, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, General Foods, Gulf American, IBM, ITT, Mobil, Texaco, Republic Steel, United States Steel, Sherwin-Williams, Texstar, Texas Instruments, and several worldwide hotel and resort enterprises, including Avis, Hilton, Holiday Inns, Howard Johnson's, Hotel Corporation of America, InterContinental Hotels, Sheraton and Western International (United Airlines)
European based companies include Akzo, Fiat, Royal Schelde, Royal Dutch Shell, Rotterdam Drydock, Netherlands Drydock, Wilton Fijenoord, Thomassen Engineering, Verolme Shipbuilding (The Rijn-Schelde Group) and various shipbuilding, capital goods and power generation companies in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Finland along with banks, service enterprises and insurance companies.
In conjunction with his firm's consulting advisory work on behalf of foreign governments throughout the world John Bradley undertook several wilderness educational and protection programs in the Middle East, Asia, Central and South America with emphasis on Venezuela's Guiana Highlands known as "The Lost World" which involved several cooperating agencies including: Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History, The New York Zoological Society, National Geographic Society, Lerner Marine Laboratories and film production companies, television networks and Life Magazine beginning in the early 1960's.
Later in life he focused on assembling substantial tracts of undeveloped wilderness lands in the Hudson Valley, and some out West to preserve, protect and manage them for profit. Instituted an enlightened management program utilizing 'new forestry' techniques of timber harvesting and minerals extraction which improved the indigenous ecosystem of diverse flora and fauna and brought profit to the owners.
Mr. Bradley was a director of various corporations, including American Natural Resources, Inc., Amerconsel, Inc., Beacon Hudson Corp, Conservancy Holdings, Ltd. Ecosystems, Inc., Intermedia, Inc., LandMark Resources, Inc. Oxford Group Holdings, Ltd., United Strates Minerals, Inc., and WoodSource, Inc. He was a trustee of The Conservancy Partnership, and The Awosting Reserve and President of the Minnewaska Trail Club, each a conservation oriented group.
Mr. Bradley is the author of "The New American Guide to Scholarships, Fellowships & Loans" and "Philanthropy for Higher Education," and editor of "Knickerbocker Centennial," "Let Freedom Ring" (American Heritage), "Titoism: Pattern for International Communism" (St. Martin's Press) and various articles for periodicals and client needs.
Most recently, Bradley sat on a tribunal, at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Mr. Bradley was an active member of several clubs including the Knickerbocker Club, Explorers Club, The Newport Reading Room, Holland Lodge, Haagsche Club in the Hague and Brooks in London to mention a few. He was also an Eagle Scout.
Bradley is survived by his daughter, Camilla Kerr Bradley and his two grandsons, Jack Atwater Matheson Bradley and Boe Bradley Bardenheier. Marilyn and their twin sons died in an automobile accident in 1978.