Bruce Wolfe

Bruce H. Wolfe, a highly respected leader in public service and the stewardship of California’s natural resources, passed away on February 25, 2020, at the age of 65. On a visit that he and his wife Jan were making to Hilton Head, South Carolina, he suffered a heart attack during one of his regular runs, doing what he most loved to do. Born on August 14, 1954 and raised in Piedmont, California, Bruce was the son of Kenneth and Madelynne Wolfe. His father, born in Montana, was an executive with Bechtel and Occidental Petroleum. His mother established the extended Wolfe family as pillars of the Piedmont community. Bruce attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he became a member of the track team, the beginning of his lifelong dedication to running. As part of the team in 1972, said to be “one of the best track seasons in Phillips Academy history,” he ran the mile in 4:32.2. Bruce then attended Stanford University, where he was a social member of the Class of 1976 and, as at Andover, joined the track team. He received a BS degree in Civil Engineering and an MS in Environmental Engineering in 1977. He studied overseas at Stanford-in-France in Tours in winter and spring, 1975, attaining a proficiency in the French language that for the rest of his life enabled him either to speak it smoothly or to butcher it mercilessly, as circumstances made appropriate. He also joined the trombone section of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, or LSJUMB, a connection that resulted in innumerable friendships with individuals whom he often praised as “high quality low-lifes.”

It was at Stanford-inFrance that Bruce met the former Jan Kraus, from Olympia, Washington. He and Jan married in 1979. Their partnership was exceptionally strong, one of those rare and wonderful marriages in which mutual support, understanding and good humor make both husband and wife the best people they can be. They were the parents of two daughters, Hillary, now in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Lauren, now in San Francisco. They took pride in their roles as the adoring and devoted grandparents of Hillary’s daughters Aspen and Kenna.

In 1977, upon receiving his Civil and Environmental Engineering degrees, Bruce joined the staff of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, a semiautonomous unit of the State Water Resources Control Board, in turn a branch of the California Environmental Protection Agency. In 1979, he was licensed as a Professional Engineer. Bruce’s 41-year career in protecting water quality culminated in his fifteen years of service as Executive Officer of the San Francisco Bay Regional Board, responsible for surface,