Lee Schipper

Memorial Video Online!

admin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:44:19 +0000

We were finally able to upload the memorial video. The file is in mp4 format and it should work on Windows and Mac alike. If you have problems viewing the video try to open it with Quicktime or VLC Player. You need to unzip the file first before you can view it. If you require a DVD instead, contact us and we will send you a copy. The file size is about 700MB so make sure you are on a fast connection.

Download the video here: lee-schipper-memorial.zip

Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship

admin — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:38:14 +0000

The Schipper Family and EMBARQ/ The World Resources Institute for Sustainable Transport, in cooperation with leading scholars and policy makers, are spearheading the creation of a Scholarship in memory of Leon J. Schipper (“Lee” or “Mr. Meter”).

The “Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship” will target sustaining the momentum of Lee Schipper’s contribution to the enrichment of the international policy dialogue in the fields of energy efficiency and sustainable transportation. Lee Schipper, international physicist, researcher, musician and co-founder of EMBARQ inspired and shaped the thinking of a generation of students and professionals and was widely recognized for enriching policy dialogue with his passion for data and challenging conventional wisdom.

The Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship

The Scholarship is aimed at expanding the contributions to research and policy dialogue in the field of energy efficiency and transportation. In memory of Lee’s work, individuals will be supported to trigger and catalyze transformative research and policy papers. There will be a special emphasis on “iconoclastic” contributions (challenging conventional wisdom) that have clear, transformative outputs.

The Schipper Family and EMBARQ are currently advancing the creation of the Scholarship through consultations with interested international donors and Lee’s extensive community of friends and professionals . This arrangement is suitable for tax-deductible donations. It is expected that the Scholarship will be established by January 2012 and launched to the public during “Transforming Transportation”, the high level conference in January (http://www.embarq.org/en/events/12/01/transforming-transportation-2012).

Donations

The Schipper Family and EMBARQ would like to seek your support to the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship.

Further details on eligibility, the governance process and the account details will be provided shortly.

Let us keep you updated

If you are interested in knowing more about the Scholarship, if you have ideas that you would like to share with us, or if you want to donate, please visit the website www.lee-schipper.org or send us an email to schipper.memorial@gmail.com.

We look forward to your continued interest, support and contributions to research and policy dialogue in the field of energy efficiency and sustainable transportation through the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship.

Tribute by Stephen Tyler

admin — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:05:48 +0000

I was stunned to hear today of Lee’s passing. Lee was a force of nature, an elemental influence that we somehow expect to always illuminate distant galaxies or riff on a familiar background theme whether we pay attention or not. Lee and I first met in 1977 in Stockholm, where I was a young foreign student working on energy conservation and Lee’s orbital velocity meant that he came in contact with anybody in that field.

When I started up conservation programs in the province of Alberta a few years later, I invited him to give a seminar on energy efficient buildings, which I remember as a percussive blizzard of acetate overheads and dizzying graphs. Lee hired me a few years later as an RA at LBL, which supported my PhD studies at Berkeley. Although we only worked together closely for a couple of years, Lee’s passion and improvisational skills inspired a great deal of my subsequent career.

Thanks, Lee.

Tribute by Caron Cooper

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:16:54 +0000

Dear Agneta, Lisa & Julia, I am sorry I wasn’t able to find you at the reception to speak with you in person. I was with my 15-year old son, and felt like he’d demonstrated as much patience as I could hope for. It was wonderful to see your faces when I spoke about Lee. Isn’t it strange something like SAS can make us smile? While I only worked with Lee for a year or two, he passed on valuable life lessons. I finally knew what it was like to be treated as an equal in the workplace. My undergraduate degree was mechanical engineering, I went to Georgetown and worked in Soviet Studies – so the DC crowd. I was always so angry about being on the outside – particularly as a female. Working with Lee was easy. He respected me, I respected him, we shared some great energy interests, he showed me how he thought (in spreadsheet form no less) so I could emulate it in my dissertation.

And when Lee made introductions, it wasn’t a simple “A this is B”. It was “A you’re not going to believe what B is up to – just fabulous work and you’re going to want to read her paper from the Lichtenstein conference”. Thinking back, no one made me feel more confident about my work than Lee. And I don’t think I recognized it while it was happening. So with the Soviet Union falling apart, trying to save a (failing) relationship I left Moscow for good to start anew in Montana. I walked away from it. And I felt shame, like I let folks down at ERG. I didn’t get in touch with anyone, I was so embarrassed: I had a baby, was a single mom, and trying to simply pay bills.

Fortunately I landed on my feet and got to work starting a new nonprofit thrift store that strangely enough utilizes a lot of the spreadsheet ideas from Lee, providing a decent living for us and helping almost everyone in Park County (we give $ to local nonprofits – on a per capita basis, the equivalent of a Goodwill in Berkeley making almost a $1 million profit per year). Lee got in contact with me this past summer. Just a simple how are you doing, what are you up to. He didn’t mention he was ill. I tried to get him to coauthor a paper with me about poverty and barriers to entering the energy efficiency market but he said he was already busy with a couple of articles and couldn’t really do it now.

I can’t tell you how meaningful this last exchange was to me. Instead of feeling like a leper, Lee still thought I had something about me that was interesting. And then when I found out Lee had passed, it moved me to tears that once again, he reached out to give me confidence in myself.

Caron Cooper

Tribute by Erica Roberts

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:24:59 +0000

I first met Lee in 1964 in the UCB dorms, and then reconnected with him and his family in the late 70s, when we had mutual friends who got us together fairly often. We had lost touch recently, but for many years would run into each other from time to time. On those occasions we always had conversations lasting, at the very least, half an hour. I always loved those encounters. Learning of Lee’s illness and death has been stunning and sad. The memorial was wonderful, with lots of laughter and many great stories, but mostly I am left feeling so sad.

Tribute by Ira Serkes

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:22:58 +0000

This afternoon I attended a celebration of the life of our neighbor Lee Schipper. In calendar years he was 64, but based upon all the things he accomplished one person thought Lee was really 112 .. and then another realized Lee lived to 192. Family, energy efficiency, humor, creativity, travel, languages, music, sartorial expertise (take a look at those shirts), playfulness, transportation policy and connecting people were just some of the things Lee excelled at … these photos show just a small part of his life … Photos and more comment at http://berkeleyhomes.com/blog/2011/10/02/things-to-do/whats-happening/memorial/a-celebration-of-the-life-of-our-neighbor-lee-schipper/

Tribute by Maria Cordeiro

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Dear Agneta, Lisa, Julia and Ramon, I give you my heartfelt condolences. I have learned about the tragic news only yesterday and have since been trying to overcome my disbelief and profound sadness. I do not promise that his message will be coherent, but after putting some jazz on, I will attempt to write my tribute to the very special person and mentor that Lee was to me. Lee was my colleague and supervisor at EMBARQ/WRI for 5 years. I have worked with Lee since then too. I was very fortunate to have worked closely with Lee and to have learned immensely from him both professionally and personally. We travelled together to Mexico, Brazil and to other beautiful places with an humble attitude but ambitious goals of contributing to improving people’s lives, improving air quality, reducing GHG emissions, improving energy efficiency… in the process Lee connected with everyone he met, he engaged and inspired with his brilliant insights, good spirit, kindness and humor. Lee touched so many lives. There are so many little stories that make the much admired Lee also the approachable and down to earth friend. All good memories. Many things went unspoken but I know that close to his heart was always his family. He took you in all his trips. Lee was very proud of Lisa and Julia and his eyes always shined when the name and endeavors of Ramon were mentioned. I wish you much strength in these difficult times. The world is not the same without Lee but he will always be with you, his friends and colleagues, and in our efforts to make this world a better place. I will also remember Lee when I listen to Jazz, eat Portuguese cheese, visit WRI, meet the EMBARQ team, the CTSs, TRB…. I will not be able to come to the memorial this Sunday but I will be with you in my thoughts and prayers. Please know that my door is always open for you.

Lots of love,

Maria Cordeiro

Tribute by Rob Bradley

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:56:13 +0000

I was lucky enough on joining WRI to have my office next to Lee’s. Quite apart from the pleasure of the constant stream of jazz wafting along the corridor, I had the frequent but unpredictable joy of Lee wandering into my office with yet another insight or joke that he wanted to share. They were in more or less infinite supply. One day we had to move offices, and inevitably the scythe had to come to Lee’s endless piles of – to my untrained eye – junk. For weeks he would burst into my office clutching a piece of paper and lamenting that “this could be the last remaining draft copy of the Swedish energy law of 1974.” Lee was a boundless sea of trivia, insight, humor and good cheer. Absent minded, scattered and (I suspect) all-too-ready to play up to the eccentric professor role, he was also endlessly kind, always ready to share his knowledge, generous with students and colleagues alike. I learned a lot from him, as surely did everyone he met. He was a wonderful and generous mentor to Maria, too. For all of us, a continual Lee monologue, whether reminding us of critical facts, recounting his attempts to lure in Nigerian spam-mongers or simply to scattershot Schipperisms (“biofools”, “unclear power”, I hear them when I sleep) was part of the soundtrack of our lives. And like all soundtracks, you notice them most when they are gone. Lee, we will miss you. You have earned the right to the greatest accolade that any of us can aspire to: the world was a better place for his having lived in it.

Tribute by Gudrun Engström Riedel

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:54:12 +0000

Dear Agneta, Lisa and Julia! We are thinking of you all the time and it would have been great and warm to share the memorial with you! Det känns svårt att vara så långt borta från Er. Vi hoppas se Er här hos oss och då få dela alla minnen av Lee. Hans energi och livsglädje finns kvar i ljust minne! Vi omsluter Er ALLA med våra varmaste kramar, tankar och böner. Gudrun, Georg, Sarah, Noomi och Channa

Tribute by Amy Howe

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:32:10 +0000

Lee will always be my brother. From hiding under my bed and scaring the crap out of me to answering emails 24/7. I might have been the silent sister but the entertainment was too good! Lee, I think about you a lot and always have, even when we have been oceans apart or when I had to google the place you said you were because I had no idea where it was. I will continue to admire you and talk to you. You inspired me to commute on my bike before UCLA even had bike racks. I took the bike into the classroom. They really didn’t know how to react. The family you leave will enrich the world and Merle would be very proud of that as would Ben. I think you know how proud I always was of my big brother. I was tickled when you came to visit us in Boise. And we will continue to tell the fish story about Steve broiling fish in your toaster oven when he lived in your apartment on Milvia. He had never seen a toaster oven! How many time have we laughed over that? Little memories come back every day and I will keep them in a safe place.