John divides his time between Palo Alto and his family land in Vermont, which is managed and unmanaged forest, cropland (hay and corn), sugarbush (2000+ maple taps), and quite a bit of wetland including three ponds and some streams. John is a retired entrepreneur who has helped to create several successful startup companies. He has spent the past 20 years serving as a board member and donor for various leading-edge nonprofits, including Island Conservation, One Reef, Sustainable Conservation, DRev, Vipani, Partners in Excellence, and Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2). He currently serves as a board member of Freshwater Life and One Reef, and is on the advisory boards of Nexleaf, Sustainable Conservation, Island Conservation, and Equalize Health. He has been a lecturer for the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program. Dawson has contributed to conservation through his engagement with organizations he recognizes as innovative and impactful.
After failing at commercial fishing and professional surfing, Bernie pursued his Plan C – becoming a scientist. He’s now a serial conservation entrepreneur. Before co-founding Freshwater Life, he co-founded the: Conservation Action Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz; the nonprofits Island Conservation and Conservación de Islas that together have protected over 460 insular endemics from extinction, and formed over 1,665,000ha of new marine and island protected areas; and the for-profit social venture, Conservation Metrics. He also helped develop the: Henry Arnhold Fellows Program which finds great people with proven conservation solutions and helps them go to scale; and, California Biodiversity Initiative a Governor’s Directive that commits California, the world’s 5th largest economy, to no new extinctions of native species and protecting and restoring 30% of each California ecosystem.