Richard Crews

Richard Crews, circa 1997

Richard Lawrence Crews (11 July 1937 - 7 March 2012) was the first executive director of the Living Universe Foundation.

Early life

Richard was born in Greenwich Village, but grew up in Scarsdale, NY.

Richard excelled at school, graduating from Williams College (magna cum laude, 1959), and Harvard Medical School (1963) with a specialization in psychiatry. After Harvard, he first discovered the S.F. Bay Area during his residency at Letterman Army Hospital. A few years later an opportunity to become Chief of Psychiatry and Neurology pulled him and his new family--wife Joyce and step-daughter Bess to Fort Bragg, NC. In 1971, he returned to the beauty of the Bay Area (now with a family of three including his newborn son Andrew) where he spent most of the rest of his life.

Career

Living in Mill Valley, Richard continued to practice psychiatry, but gradually found he had lost faith and interest in what he called "western medicine". Over the next decade, he explored alternative medicine. He worked with the Creative Living Center, and took a major roll at the Wholistic Health and Nutrition Center. At WHN, he practiced wholistic health, taught nutrition and developed courses on nutrition at several educational institutions. During this time, he also discovered and mastered homeopathy, which was a passion of his for the rest of his life. In 1978 he co-founded, and was president of Columbia Pacific Univ. in San Rafael. In addition to guiding CPU's course as a growing business and university, he wrote study programs, policy manuals, reports and evaluations for legislation in higher education. He would remain with CPU until it closed in the 1990's, after losing a long battle with the state on what was then a radical, non-traditional method of education.

Retirement

Richard had a very active retirement. He moved to Texas for a few years, and worked with the First Millennial Foundation studying self-sufficient living practices (as part of the first step towards colonizing the solar system).

First Millennial Foundation

Richard served as a member of the FMF Board of Directors as of 28 February 1997, and also served as Editor-in-Chief of Distant Star, the electronic journal of the FMF.

As far as the FMF is concerned, I used to think the world was divided into two kinds of people--those who thought the planet and the human species could not be saved, and those who didn't understand the problem. Then one day when I was hunting for some good books for a future studies course ("Probabilities and Possibilities: Perspectives on the Future"), I ran across Marshall's book. After spending several months researching OTEC and aquaculture on my own, I decided Marshall was right and maybe the world could be saved. So I've decided to spend the last few decades of my life trying hard to do that.

— Richard Crews, 28 Feb 1997, on the FMF website

Later life

In 2004, he moved back to the Bay Area to be close to his son, Andrew. Here his retirement was filled with projects, including acting, singing, tutoring, blogging about the world, and in 2010, he worked on the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury.

Death

At the time of his death in 2012, he was survived by his son, Andrew, former wife and later close friend Joyce, step-daughter Bess and sister Dorothy. There was a memorial gathering on 9 June 2012, from 2-4:00 PM at the Homestead Valley Community Center, 315 Montford Ave in Mill Valley.

Sources

Legacy.com [1]

FMF website, retrieved from Internet Archive, 28 Feb 1997 [2]

I grew up in Scarsdale, just north of New York City. I got a B.A. from Williams College and then an M.D. from Harvard. Then, heeding the advice of Horace Greeley ("Go west, young man, go west"), I headed out to San Francisco and had a medical-surgical internship at San Francisco General Hospital. Then I got drafted. I'd never really thought much about the army (except to avoid it by staying in school) and it turned out not to be too bad--in fact, I decided to stay in for seven years. I finished my psychiatric training at Letterman, the huge Army hospital in San Francisco, and then spent three years as Chief of Psychiatry at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

In 1970 I got out of the Army and started in private practice in psychiatry in Mill Valley, California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. During the next ten years I got into teaching and also setting up educational programs, mostly in the behavioral sciences (psychology, social work, etc.). Then in 1978 I was asked to join a small group and became the founding president of Columbia Pacific University. That has occupied most of my time over the past 19 years--curriculum design, administration, and public relations. Recently I also became president of The Wyoming College of Advanced Studies.

I've been in and out of music most of my life. I studied advanced harmony and composition in college and still sing a fair bass and compose choral works from time to time (five of my choral compositions were performed at the College of Marin in 1995-1996). I also write poems and short stories (I've published three collections) and have served for several years as the chief editor for a literary journal, the "CPU Review," published by Columbia Pacific University. Actually in total I've published just over 20 books, but most of them are rather dry academic things.

Along the way I've been married (and divorced) four times--all very successful marriages. I have one son, Andy, who is 26, a world-class athelete (he was captain of the collegiate ultimate team that came in first in the nation in 1996), and 9/10 of a Ph.D. in computer programming--as well as being a remarkably sensitive and mature gentleman (I guess he got a lot from his mother).

As far as the FMF is concerned, I used to think the world was divided into two kinds of people--those who thought the planet and the human species could not be saved, and those who didn't understand the problem. Then one day when I was hunting for some good books for a future studies course ("Probabilities and Possibilities: Perspectives on the Future"), I ran across Marshall's book. After spending several months researching OTEC and aquaculture on my own, I decided Marshall was right and maybe the world could be saved. So I've decided to spend the last few decades of my life trying hard to do that.

— Richard Crews, autobiography, 28 Feb 1997 [3]