Our dear friend and colleague Ed Easton died peacefully in his sleep in late August 2019 from complications of a stroke. He will be missed by all those who knew him and worked alongside him in his various endeavors. Nearly his entire life was spent in some form of service to the public interest.
Ed and his family — wife, Ky, and sons, Ed Jr. and Will — arrived in Santa Barbara in 2000 from North Carolina, where he had worked for more than a decade with the National Wildlife Federation and formed strong connections at the Sierra Club. He was at home in the natural world, having grown up spending summers at Camp Timanous, a boys’ camp in a remote area of Maine, where he developed a strong commitment to the beauty and health of the natural world. He translated this awareness into his Gaviota Coast activism.
When Ed retired, he became active in a number of local organizations. We met Ed in early 2004 when he joined the board of directors of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy. His application was impressive; his degrees in architecture and political science from Yale provided a wonderful academic background for issues the Conservancy was facing. Equally intriguing was his extensive work history with the National Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club. The man had “chops.”