Eric Paul Schmidt's Obituary
Eric Schmidt (June 6, 1951 – June 23, 2025)
Eric Schmidt, 74, a resident of The Sea Ranch, CA, died on June 23 at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, CA due to complications of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer.
Eric was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1951 to Paul F. Schmidt and Rebecca J. Kennedy. In 1952 the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where Paul served as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Rebecca studied modern dance. At 10 years old, Eric was honored by the Appalachian Mountain Club as the youngest person to climb all 4,000-foot peaks in New Hampshire. In 1965, Eric and elder brother Lawrence departed Oberlin for the Woodstock Country School in Vermont, where they were active in the antiwar movement. In 1969, Eric was granted Conscientious Objector status. He subsequently worked with the American Friends Service Committee in Kingston, Jamaica, where he built housing for a criminal justice diversion program; and in Fresno, CA, where he built homes for farmworker families.
While studying Architecture at the University of New Mexico, Eric participated in student protests of the Vietnam War, the invasion of Cambodia, and the Kent State shooting. Eric witnessed National Guardsmen stabbing students and Albuquerque residents with bayonets at a student demonstration in 1970. This incident affected him deeply throughout his life and led him to transfer to the University of Oregon, where he worked as a bartender and landscaper while earning a degree in Landscape Architecture. Eric subsequently lived in San Francisco, where he worked for Lawrence Halprin & Associates on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC and other urban design projects; and in Seattle, where he worked for Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects on habitat designs for the Woodland Park Zoo.
In 1978, Eric enrolled in the Master of Architecture program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked as a Graduate Teaching Instructor and was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for leadership and service. In 1980 Eric met his future wife Denise García, a fellow architecture graduate student. While starting their careers, Eric and Denise lived both together – in Cambridge and Boston – and separately, maintaining a long-distance relationship when Eric accepted a teaching position at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1986, Eric seized an opportunity to return to Boston as Executive Director of the Boston Civic Design Commission, and he and Denise were married that year. For the next 7 years, Eric worked for BCDC and the Boston Redevelopment Authority on public space and transportation projects such as the Midtown Cultural District and Central Artery.
Eric and Denise were expecting their first child when Eric was invited to work on a major public transit project in Seattle. The couple – along with their two dogs and new daughter Lina – moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington in 1993, where Denise opened an architecture office and designed their new home. Eric founded his own firm, Cascade Design Collaborative, in 1995. Eric channeled his passion for public space and the environment into creating schools, parks, and streetscapes for Seattle, its neighboring cities, and the Suquamish Tribe. When he retired in 2018, Eric had worked for 46 years and received 24 National Planning and Design Awards for a wide variety of street, transit, zoning, master planning, and urban design projects.
When not working Eric enjoyed a multitude of outdoor activities, from hiking, skiing, sailing, rock climbing, kayaking, and river rafting to gardening and composting. He also coached girls’ soccer, organized father-daughter camping trips in the Pacific Northwest, and remained politically active in demonstrations against racism, sexism, and climate change. Eric particularly loved the landscapes and indigenous architecture of the Southwest, and treasured his memories of exploring Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico in the family’s orange Volkswagen camper. Before his cancer diagnosis Eric was planning his eighth trip through the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.
Eric was particularly concerned about climate change. He often commented on the decreasing flow of the Colorado River on each subsequent journey, saying: "Climate change is a continuum of catastrophic events that will grow exponentially. Time is of the essence to make significant changes in how we live and to cap carbon increases in the atmosphere. If we want our grandchildren to have any sort of balanced environment, ecology, and peaceful civilization with enough food and water to survive, [we must] reduce the wars which increase climate change, impact food production, and displace millions. The breadth of diversity on this planet and species here today are in danger. These next 30-40 years, the end of my being, will display which path we have chosen."
Eric was preceded in death by his father, mother, and siblings, Karl and Ileene Schmidt. He is survived by his wife, Denise García and their daughter Lina; brother Lawrence Schmidt (Monika Reuss) and sister Hilary Gilford (Cono Di Zeo); as well as his aunt Mary Cochran; his nieces and nephews Kassandra, Giuseppa, and Nathan; and numerous cousins.
Eric’s celebration of life is on Saturday, September 13 at noon at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA. Donations in Eric’s memory would be greatly appreciated.
DONATIONS American Friends Service Committee https://afsc.org
AFSC is a Quaker organization with over 100 years of experience developing peace in communities in the U.S. and around the globe. Your tax-deductible gift will help fund our worldwide work for a more just, peaceful, sustainable future. The Freedom Archives https://freedomarchives.org/donation/
The Freedom Archives is a non-profit educational archive located in Berkeley dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of historical audio, video and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s. Offering a youth development program focused on engagement with these historical materials and providing media production training, we also produce original documentaries and educational resources for use by schools and organizations as tools for community building and social justice work.
North Bay Rapid Response Network (Napa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties) https://www.northbayop.org/donate
The Rapid Response Network provides a way for people to respond to fear and anxiety in our community as a result of the increase in immigration enforcement, ICE raids and other attacks against our communities. The network provides a 24-hour hotline to immigrants facing a raid by federal immigration agents, dispatches trained legal observers to the raid location, provides legal defense to affected communities, and offers accompaniment to impacted people and families following a raid. Our mission is to mobilize an emergency response network, serve as witnesses to immigration enforcement actions, uphold the rights of immigrants, and provide services to affected North Bay residents.
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