Preserving the legacy of Bay Area Action’s environmental work from 1990–2000 and beyond.
Learn more...
Remembering the members of the Bay Area Action community who are no longer with us.
Cheryl Campbell was a larger-than-life BAA Rad Sheep and part of the infamous “6-Pack.” She was Garden Manager of BAA’s Midtown Garden in 1994, and known for the line, “I can’t wait to see what life has in store for me today!” In 1999, we lost her beautiful soul to an automobile accident. She was 40 years old.
– Laura Stec, 2025
Remembrance to come...
Remembrance to come...
Remembrance to come...
Remembrance to come...
Walt Hays was a prominent Peninsula citizen and longtime volunteer with a number of nonprofits, including the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta Chapter, the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation (PCCF), Bay Area Action (BAA), Acterra, Habitat for Humanity, Carbon-Free Palo Alto, and the Waddell Creek Association.
“If civilization is to continue, we need people to volunteer,” he told the Palo Alto Weekly in 2008. “The best thing to avoid being discouraged about something is to do something about it.”
Walt graduated from Stanford Law School and practiced as a civil trial lawyer for 32 years before retiring in 1994. He served as a San Jose City Council member from 1969 to 1973, where his main focus was to protect the region from urban sprawl.
He served as a San Jose City Council member from 1969 to 1973, where his main focus was to protect the region from urban sprawl. He moved to Palo Alto in 1976. He served as volunteer counsel for the California Solar Energy Industry Association.
Walt was a primary force behind increased program cooperation between BAA and the PCCF in 1998 that led to the merger of the two orgs in 2000, later called Acterra. He had served as a PCCF board member for years and was an active BAA volunteer. He remained on the Acterra board as well.
In 2001 he was honored as an Outstanding Citizen with a Tall Tree Award by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and Palo Alto Weekly. In 2008 he was honored with an Avenidas Lifetime of Achievement Award for his decades of public service.
Walt Hay, 87, died of congestive heart failure at The Sequoias in Portola Valley in January 2023.
Remembrance to come...
(also see Action vol 4 no 1)
We at Bay Area Action are saddened by the loss of longtime BAA member Hans Liband who died Saturday, November 7, 1992. Hans will be remembered for his committed work for Earth Day 1990, his warm hugs and impressive stature, his genuine friendliness, his belief in the power of individuals to work change, and for his dedication to making change happen. Be it Redwood Summer or the Nevada Test Site actions, Hans was often seen sharing concerns with the opposition in an attempt to open dialogue. He was always gentle, respectful, and we will all miss him very much.
(from Action vol 3 no 6)
Corey Mikami was a member of the High Schools Group in the mid to late 1990s. He was an accomplished photographer and sometimes contributed his artistic studies of nature to the BAA newsletters and website. He died from a brain tumor in 2017.
In a 1996 Schools Group newsletter he wrote: “For me, BAA helps give my life direction. By being able to help others in our community, including future generations through work in the environment, I am helping myself. Bay Area Action helps me to understand how to conserve and protect the environment while at the same time teaches me how to share what I know with others. It also gives me a cool sense of belonging and welcomeness.”
He also volunteered with Committee for Green Foothills.
After high school Corey attended UC Santa Cruz. Fostering his love of nature, he later studied agriculture and foreign studies at the The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel. In 1999 he wrote, “I am passionate about connecting city dwellers back to nature by growing plants in urban areas. I traveled to Australia and Italy, where I noticed varying styles of agriculture and landscape design. These issues interest me as a future landscape designer.”
Dr. Elaine Solowey, Director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, remembered Corey fondly as “a very aware person who loved the trees.”
Corey’s Facebook account has been memorialized.
Remembrance to come...
Jason Ulibarri was a longtime BAA volunteer and part of the heralded but secretive “Six Pack.“
An avid world traveler, in 1998 Jason started the AdventureScapes project at BAA, an online magazine for travelers interested in the then-emerging ecotourism sector.
Later Jason became a longtime member of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland. He died in 2019.