Award History
Established in 2014, the Joseph Albert Dear Distinguished Alumni Award is named after Joe Dear, an accomplished 1977 Evergreen graduate and lifelong advocate of the college, who dedicated his life to public service. His list of accomplishments includes helping restore solvency to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, heading the Washington State Investment Board and Department of Labor and Industries, leading the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration under President Clinton, serving as chief of staff to Washington Governor Gary Locke, and serving on The Evergreen State College Foundation’s board of governors. Each year during Return to Evergreen we honor Joe’s contributions and other alumni like him who continue to go above and beyond in public service.
2025 Recipient:
John Calambokidis '78
John Calambokidis is a Senior Research Biologist and one of the founders of Cascadia Research Collective, a non-profit research organization formed in 1979 based in Olympia, Washington. He periodically serves as an Adjunct Faculty at the Evergreen State College teaching a course on marine mammals.
His primary interests are the biology of marine mammals and the impacts of humans. He has served as Project Director of over 200 projects. He has authored two books on marine mammals (on blue whales and a guide to marine mammals) as well more than 175 publications in scientific journals, 150 technical reports, and 200 scientific presentations. He has conducted studies on a variety of marine mammals in the North Pacific from Central America to Alaska.He served as Project Manager for major projects such as the SPLASH Pacific-wide study of humpback whales and the Southern California Behavioral Response Study to sonar. He has directed long-term research on the status, movements, and underwater behavior of blue, humpback, and gray whales. Some of his recent research has included attaching tags to whales with suction cups to examine their feeding behavior and vocalizations.
His work has been covered on shows by National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC, and others. He has received awards from the American Cetacean Society for Lifetime Achievement in Marine Mammal Science (in 2012), from the Washington chapter of Wildlife Society for Lifetime Leadership in Conservation (2019), and the Olympia Rotary Club Environmental Protection Award (2018).
Past Award Recipients
- 2024 - Seth Kirby '02, MPA '07
- 2023 - Monica Alexander '13
- 2022 - Denny Heck '73
- 2021 - Cheryl Batalon Fambles '82
- 2020 - Cheryl Strange '88
- 2019 - John C. Stocks '81
- 2018 - Ron Charles '97
- 2018 - Yuh-Line Niou '04
- 2017 - Sharon Tomiko Santos '85
- 2016 - Nate Gibbs-Bowling '04, MiT '06
- 2015 - Maia Bellon '91
- 2014 - The Family of Joe Dear