When I first got my start as an environmental organizer in California, I grew to depend on calls home to my parents in New Jersey every weekend. My mom was unfailingly supportive, usually asking if I was eating enough and how things were going with that smart, cute girl Mary they had recently met. My dad had a different way of showing his love. "Get any bills passed?" he'd ask. "How many acres did you save?" Often the calls would end with his favorite advice: "Don't just shuffle papers and hold conference calls—do something!"

Dad was tough to please, and that's just the way I liked it. He was a working-class intellectual who served in the U.S. Marines, followed my grandfather into construction, and built houses on the Jersey Shore for more than 50 years. He got a degree in history and political science through years of night classes at Rutgers University. My dad entered politics when I was a young child, in part because he was worried about pollution near our home. We lived on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay, and my dad was twice elected mayor of Toms River, the township that included our community of Chadwick Beach, New Jersey. Thanks in part to him, our community got new parks, a library, and a skating rink. Dad modeled for me the importance of working hard and helped remind me why I do this work: to save the country's unique wonders and essential ecosystems, and the people who depend on them.

But Dad's civic involvement went far beyond putting up houses and holding the gavel at city hall. He was the fun neighborhood dad—active and engaged. When Barnegat Bay froze each year, my dad was the one who tested the ice to be sure it was safe for the kids to skate on. In the winter, he coached hockey; in the summer, little league. People are what give a community character, and everyone in ours knew my dad.

Working within communities to make them stronger, healthier, and better—nothing the Sierra Club does today is more important. We, too, are in construction: It's a cleaner, better future we're building.

For someone who lived almost his entire life in New Jersey, my dad was also a great explorer. His curiosity was boundless, and he was the most widely read person I've ever known. He treasured the outdoors and took great joy in teaching me and my siblings to swim in the bay and bodysurf in the ocean. He and my mom took us on camping trips and loaded us into a station wagon for the classic family road trip through the American West. From them, we learned to value and seek understanding of the world well beyond our own horizons.

The Sierra Club was founded on those same principles of enjoying wild nature. Our mission to protect our planet is sustained and inspired by our capacity to understand, explore, and appreciate it.

For almost eight decades, my dad lived a full, productive, and often joyous life, but times weren't always easy. Construction is a tough business, and economic downturns don't care how hard you're willing to work. Years on job sites took a physical toll. His knees gave out, then his hips. And then came Alzheimer's, a cruel disease that inexorably shrank the world around him.  

But when his business and his body faltered, he never despaired or complained, and never once gave up. 

Robert Brune passed away this past summer, surrounded by his family. I miss him terribly. But his lifetime of service continues to inspire me, and his resilience is something I have to believe in, not just for the Sierra Club, but for our nation. I lost my father, but the values we shared—the same ones that define this community we call the Sierra Club—those will not so easily be taken from us.

Photo by Henrik Ham