Memorial: Ted Gartner

Ted Gartner, a former Berkeley Partners for Parks Chair and President (1997-1998), passed away on August 2. Ted was a renaissance man; he was a scientist by day (until his 2006 retirement ) at LBNL, a founder Environmental Energy Technologies Division and a community advocate by night. Ted was fluent in Spanish, and used his skills translating Spanish to English for his work. He maintained a vast collection of saint statues and religious sculptures. In his spare time, he was a community activist, a leader in FUN (Friends of University Ave. Neighborhood) and a founder of an early adopt-a-park group, the University Avenue Gardeners. He led many gardeners in maintaining the native plantings in the University Avenue median throughout the mid-1990’s . Ted is remembered by his colleagues in BPFP as a gentle, calm, and soft-spoken man, with a wry sense of humor, being generous of nature, while practical and even-handed in guiding the relatively young BPFP in park and playground improvement projects. These among other qualities made him an excellent chair and president. He will be missed.