Brad O’Brien and Steve Blank, legal and financial leaders from Menlo Park, have joined the board of directors of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), a private nonprofit land trust that has preserved more than 60,000 acres of open land on the Peninsula.
Mr. O’Brien brings legal expertise and thousands of hours of pro bono work to the POST board. He is a senior partner in the real estate and environmental practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto.
Mr. O’Brien began giving to POST in 1991 and soon began helping craft legal agreements for POST’s land acquisitions, including Rancho Corral de Tierra north of Half Moon Bay, and Whaler’s Cove and Lobitos Ridge south of Half Moon Bay. He also helped negotiate the recent purchase of POST’s new headquarters at 222 High St. in Palo Alto.
Besides helping POST, Mr. O’Brien serves as a director of Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, and has done pro bono work for other organizations, including Ronald McDonald House, Sempervirens Fund, Environmental Volunteers, Menlo School, and the Woodside High School Foundation.
Mr. O’Brien wants to help expand POST’s network, reach out to the next generation, and serve as an example to the community. “I believe in protecting natural lands, especially in areas like ours where the development pressures on open space are so great,” he said.
Steve Blank
Mr. Blank brings entrepreneurial skills to the POST board. Now retired, he has co-founded several companies, including E.piphany, MIPS Computers, Ardent, and Rocket Science Games. He teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, the University of California Berkeley, and the Columbia Business School. He also serves on the California Coastal Commission and the board of directors of the National Audubon Society, as well as chair of the board of Audubon California.
In addition to their home in Menlo Park, Mr. Blank and his wife, Alison Elliott, own a ranch on the coast near Pescadero. In 2004, they donated $1 million to POST’s Save the Endangered Coast campaign through their family foundation.
POST exemplifies the new model of entrepreneurial conservation, Mr. Blank said. “It is creative, agile and effective. POST has become a model for 21st-century land conservation, saving threatened properties that define our experience of California and the American West.”
POST President Audrey Rust welcomed the two new board members. “POST is now, more than ever, equipped to broaden its conservation work,” she said. “Their business acumen, passion for the environment, and commitment to POST will serve us well as we work to safeguard our most vulnerable open space lands.”
