Visionaries | Julie Packard: Visionary for the Monterey Bay

Seeking sustainable solutions has been Julie Packard’s life work, a mission she’s approached on many fronts over the course of her career. When she and a small group of marine scientists founded the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a defining aspect of their vision was to display not just individual species, but the ocean communities collectively made up of plants, animals, sun, wind and waves. Packard knows the health of the whole depends on all the elements working together. This principle drives her approach to creating change—as the Aquarium’s executive director, as board chair of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and as a philanthropist.

She recognizes the important role universities play in building healthy communities. Packard has supported CSUMB through every major milestone in its history, contributing both through personal gifts and advocating for grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Packard is especially glad to support CSUMB as a designated Hispanic-serving institution. “We need diversity in STEM fields and we need to provide access for students of color in the region and throughout California,” she says. “And we need to help those students navigate the university experience in order to be successful.”

Packard recalls “living in the library” during her time studying marine biology at UC Santa Cruz. The space provided more than just books—it was the hub where she built connections among her fellow students and faculty. For her, that sense of community was just as critical to her academic success as the courses she was taking. That’s why she advocated for the Packard Foundation to make a major gift to the Tanimura & Antle Family Memorial Library at the time of its construction.

Later, she gave again to house an archive of local congressman Sam Farr’s papers in the library, established as "The Farr Legacy Collection". “Sam is a great supporter of ocean science and conservation,” she says. “Preserving and making available his archives has a lot of value. Others can learn a lot from his policy work around coastal and ocean science and planning. California has been a leader in that domain, thanks to those like Sam who were working on these issues early on.”

Packard is no stranger to policy work herself. Engaging with government and policymakers has been a major focus of her efforts on behalf of the ocean, as she’s called on the aquarium and its supporters to take courageous action in the face of grave threats such as climate change, overfishing and plastic pollution. She served on a national ocean commission, worked closely with Secretary of State John Kerry to advance international ocean policy, and has been a featured speaker at several global policy conferences addressing a range of ocean issues.

With the forthcoming proposal of a new building on campus to house expanded programs in the College of Science, Packard recognized another opportunity to prepare CSUMB students to participate in science based policy work.

“I personally supported a feasibility study to look at the NOAA Sanctuary offices moving there,” she says. “They’ve been an important and wonderful presence on the bay, and they haven’t had a permanent home.

“It made sense to look at them being co-located on campus. A lot of the students are involved in research that is relevant to the sanctuary, and it would expose students to different types of government jobs in resource management.”

The new building proposal will also support degree programs in agricultural plant and soil science, and mechatronics engineering. A self-professed plant nerd, Packard keeps an apple orchard on her property and is well aware of the growing market demand for agricultural technology. “It’s a great opportunity to think about how to apply engineering and tech for sustainable solutions,” she says.

Through her strong support for CSUMB and its students, Packard is contributing toward her vision of a healthy, sustainable community ecosystem.