The term “dynamic duo” springs to mind when describing the accomplishments of Steve Blank and Alison Elliott.
Steve Blank spent 21 years in eight Silicon Valley startups. He now teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, and for the National Science Foundation. He is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual.
He also gives a heck of a commencement speech (here are his “Cliff Notes” to his main points from one such speech):
Be forever curious.
Volunteer for everything.
Show up a lot.
Treat failure as a learning experience.Live life with no regrets.
Remembering…There is no undo button.
Alison Elliott is the interim Executive Director of the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The Center supports research and education in corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and other new approaches that build collaboration among business, government, and nonprofits to address social and environmental challenges.
The couple, both highly talented and widely recognized “masters of innovation,” have applied that spirit of innovation to their tireless conservation work in California. Blank is a California Coastal Commissioner, a CLCV Board member, a former board member of Peninsula Open Space Trust and former chairman of Audubon California who also served on the Audubon National board. Elliott is a former trustee with the California State Parks Foundation who currently serves on the boards of the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund and the Peninsula School Endowment and Trust Fund.
In a recent example of how the couple has pioneered new strategies to protect California’s environment, Steve Blank and Alison Elliott played an instrumental role in helping California’s Año Nuevo State Reserve open a state-of-the-art Marine Education Center with a unique, strategic public/private partnership.
The partnership, which revitalizes one of the most visited of California’s state parks (with more than 200,000 annual visitors including 25,000 school children), will have lasting implications for the future of grant-making and state conservation efforts.
Driven by Blank and Elliott, the California Department of Parks and Recreation teamed with the California State Parks Foundation to initiate the project, which makes the amazing stretch of coastline–“a treasure where wild Elephant seals, sea lions, and other marine mammals come ashore to rest, mate and give birth”–more accessible for visitors while inspiring budding environmental advocates. The couple’s leadership also encouraged the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to help make the center a reality.
Reflecting on their family’s conservation and coastal preservation work, Blank has said:
“[A]s you get older, you think about legacy. What do you want to leave, not only to your children, but to others? We want to help preserve the coast for others as well as for our family, and to be able to share it for generations.”
Steve Blank and Alison Elliott are among the visionary environmental champions who will be honored on June 27 at the CLCV Environmental Leadership Awards.
