Remembering Charles

CIMM lost a champion and good friend in March 2019.

Charles was a community-builder. He believed that water resources and sustainable urban infrastructure required diverse communities from a broad variety of expertise. He was particularly keen on bridging the science and engineering communities to create approaches to sustainable urban water infrastructure that were more well-rounded. This manifested itself in his dedicated work to help establish the National Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management.

Community and collaboration were the tenants Charles brought to NCIMM. For Charles, it was never about what he accomplished, but whether that what he accomplished enabled others to accomplish more.

There were so many of us that knew Charles as a friend as well as colleague and so many, many more who found themselves blessed by having worked with Charles. The common denominator for all of us that knew Charles can be summed up in the following excerpts of “What Will Matter” by Michael Josephson*:

What will matter is:

Not what you bought, but what you built;

Not your success, but your significance;

Not what you learned, but what you taught;

Every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice for others; and

Not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone.

By these measures and in many other ways, Charles lived a life that mattered.

*© 2003, Michael Joesphson, Josephson Institute of Ethics , 8117 W. Manchester Ave. #830, Playa del Rey, CA 90293