Richard Crews

Richard Crews, circa 1997

Doctor 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).

In February 2001 rent at his house in Mill Valley, California was set to rise again, to the point where it would take up most of his Social Security cheque. Therefore, he opted to finally take the plunge and move to the Space Environments Ecovillage (SEE-1) purchased by William A. Gale in 1997. He would become the first resident.

During this time his address was 135 Millennial Way, Bastrop, TX 78602.

His final regular blog entry appeared on 26 March 2004:

SEE report for Friday, March 26, 2004

The weather the past few days has been overcast and muggy with rare, light sprinkles, and with temperatures rising into the 90s--a bit cloying but not terribly offensive (not yet, anyway--we will hit over 110 degrees most every day in June, July, and August). The fence is progressing well--more than half of the wood’s boundary has been completed. The dewberry festival has gotten under way, so the fields have become sprinkled liberally with white blossoms and the promise, a few weeks hence, of rich, juicy berries (around here they’re called dewberries, a lot of places they’re called blackberries or boysenberries). Mowing season is nearly upon us. In a week or two at most I will need to start mowing all the cleared area--about five acres--a full day’s work--every two weeks. And finally, as herald of the oncoming season, I have turned off the hot water heater in the house until October (showers and washing will be done cool, not warm) and I took my first dip in the wading pool yesterday (the water temperature was 78--the air temperature, 92).

I put in five new fruit trees along the front “breakwater”--three figs and two plums, all different species. And eleven of the fruit trees planted prior years have awakened from their winter dormancy and sprouted buds or flowers. Plus I put in ten flowering trees provided by the Arbor Day Society along the front fence by the car-park. I should also mention that wildflowers, now yellow and white but soon to be red, blue, etc., are spread thickly across the lawn and fields, with Indian paintbrush and blue bonnets beginning to show.

On a more somber note, I returned a donation check I got in the mail yesterday. I wrote, in part, “I, too, believe that Marshall Savage’s book, The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, presents a magnificent vision of a path for creating a proper and inspiring future for humankind. The First Millennial Foundation (FMF) and its successor, The Living Universe Foundation (LUF), put some life into that vision and generated considerable enthusiasm for hundreds of us. However, the FMF and LUF are no more. They had their day and are no longer functioning (or legally incorporated) entities. This is not to be lamented. Times change. Visions evolve. We move on.”

— Richard Crews, 26 March 2004 [1]

He announced he was moving back to California to the group on 19 August 2004. He lived at SEE-1 until about September or October 2004:

I'm moving back to California in a few weeks. As you know, I haven't been active in the fmf-luf for several months. In cleaning up and packing up, I find have a couple of cartons, maybe 75 copies, of _The Millennial Project_

I hate to throw them out--they are "out of print" with somewhat limited availability although one can buy one at Amazon.com, used, for $9 or even less these days. If someone wants to pay the $30-or-so shipping, I will tape the cartons, address them, and take them to UPS.

Let me know (with your s-mail address).

Cheers, Richard

— Richard Crews, LUF Yahoo Groups mailing list, 19 August 2004

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

From 2002 to 2004, he was the sole resident of the sole large-scale practical project ever undertaken by the FMF/LUF: the Space Environments Ecovillage ("SEE").

After he decided to leave in 2004, the land reverted back to the estate of William A. Gale.

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 [2]

FMF website, retrieved from Internet Archive, 28 Feb 1997 [3]

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 [4]