April 18, 2002 | Read Time: 7 minutes
Throughout his college years, John S. Engen dreamed of helping people by pursuing a career delivering social services. His first job — managing a program for troubled youths — changed his mind.
“I found I was not cut out for direct service,” says Mr. Engen. “I wasn’t good at dealing with the constant stress and trauma people go through. I did it for four or five years, but then I got very burned out with the craziness of the world.”
When his organization’s grant-proposal writer quit suddenly, just days before the application deadline for a crucial federal grant the group needed to keep its doors open, Mr. Engen’s boss pressed him into service. Mr. Engen’s crash course in proposal writing struck pay dirt, as he secured a substantial increase in support. His success convinced him to stay on the fund-raising side of nonprofit operations, where he’s remained ever since.
Last month he began his latest job: vice president and director of development at Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 Center. The 250-acre campus, in the Sonoran Desert between Tucson and Phoenix, is part of the Columbia Earth Institute, a network of eight research and teaching centers that focus on understanding the earth and its systems. The center’s chief feature is Biosphere 2, a 3.15-acre living laboratory encased in glass and stainless steel in which scientists can manipulate atmospheric-gas concentrations, rainfall, temperature, humidity, and other variables to simulate various environmental conditions. Four types of habitats, or biomes, are recreated for research inside the airtight structure: a coral reef, a desert, a tropical rainforest, and a temperate forest.
Biosphere 2 (the earth itself is Biosphere 1) was built in the 1980s to test the feasibility of creating human colonies on Mars. Financed largely by Edward P. Bass, a Houston billionaire, it housed small groups of scientists who were sealed inside for as long as two years at a time, living as if on a spaceship. After those experiments ended in 1994, Columbia agreed to manage the facility as an earth-science laboratory, which opened in 1996.
Scientists and students now conduct research in the facility, which also draws some 180,000 visitors a year.
In a recent interview, Mr. Engen, who is 46, spoke about his job and his plans for building support for the $150-million facility, which has an annual budget of about $17-million.
What kind of work goes on in Biosphere 2, and what do scientists hope to learn there?
It is clear that we as humans are facing an environment that is changing, as carbon dioxide levels are rising around the world. Our mission focuses on climate-change science. Biosphere 2 is the world’s largest contained and controlled environmental facility. No other facility on earth can better simulate the earth’s atmospheric conditions.
Some have described it as a time machine. It can create conditions that mimic how the earth’s climate was thousands of years ago, or project it forward hundreds of years. We can create an environment where carbon dioxide concentrations are twice today’s levels, for example, to see what’s going to be the effect of rising CO2 levels on the ocean, on plant growth, on living things. It’s immensely valuable for science.
Which is your favorite habitat?
I love the rainforest. There’s lush growth in there, an impressive multilayer canopy with plants growing at different elevations, and a significant amount of humidity. That’s my favorite, partly because I’ve never had a chance to go to the tropics. We can get snow up here, so it’s a wonderful place to have at our fingertips.
How is the Columbia Earth Institute network changing the way research is being done?
In the old days, we used to conduct research in a discipline-specific way: If you were a botanist, you’d study plants; if you were a hydrologist, you’d study water; if you were an entomologist, you’d study insects. There was not a lot of communication between them, nor was there lots of interfacing with people on the social-science side. Now, we’re bringing all those people together in a holistic way. We try to cut across disciplines and bring everybody together to focus on the larger picture.
Similarly, in the old days, some people would fund programs to save the whales, or spotted owls, or saving a forest. But with Biosphere 2, we’re giving people an opportunity to save, in a sense, the whole earth, because they have a chance to help us work on the whole biosphere. So it’s an exciting opportunity.
What aspects of your new job attracted you the most?
What really attracted me to Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 was that we truly are uniquely positioned here to address what is perhaps the most critical issue of our time: the sustainability of earth. We have the ability to study earth-system science to address these issues. We’re doing vigorous research, but we’re also educating college and high-school students, as well as hundreds of thousands of people every year, so we have the potential to have real societal impact.
How do you plan to broaden support for the center?
We’re looking to try to build up a membership program. We know there are a lot of people who care deeply about the environment, who are concerned about what’s going to happen to the earth, and who know that we, as a species, are impacting the earth. We think they’ll want to be partners with us in exploring those issues.
I’m also helping to set up an advisory board for the center — not only in terms of providing vision and direction, but also in providing an entree to individuals, foundations, and corporations.
Who are the center’s principal financial supporters now?
Decisions Investments Corporation [a privately held company owned by Mr. Bass] still supports the center. Other major funders include the Bert W. Martin Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, AB Volvo, the Ford Motor Company, and AT&T. About half of the $17-million annual budget comes from foundations, corporations, and individual donors. We also get tuition payments from our academic program, which has served over 1,000 students since 1996, not just from Columbia and Barnard College but also from 30 partnering institutions. And some 150,000 to 200,000 visitors each year pay an admission fee.
What’s the most satisfying thing about raising money?
The reason I love fund raising is that I don’t see it as me going out and asking people to invest in my university’s program. But instead, I try to find out, what do donors want to accomplish? It’s my job to help them accomplish their goals. Often, that can be a partnership with my university. If there’s no link, that’s fine; I’ll encourage them to get in touch with other people who can do that. I’m not trying to get revenue from everybody for my program, but I’m trying to match people’s interests with their goals and help them accomplish their life vision. The donors I work with are extremely excited about having the chance to contribute to the sustainability of our earth.
ABOUT JOHN S. ENGEN, DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT FOR THE BIOSPHERE 2 CENTER
Education: Received a bachelor of arts degree in business administration and a bachelor of science in psychology from Washington State University in Pullman, and a master’s degree in social sciences from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.
Previous employment: Worked for nonprofit groups in Pierce County, Wash., including as executive director of the Washington State 4-H Foundation. More recently, he was executive director of the Arizona 4-H Youth Foundation and then development director for the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Charitable interests: Has served on the boards of Habitat for Humanity–Tucson and the Washington State and southern Arizona chapters of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, as well as other organizations.
Hobbies: An avid skier and outdoorsman, Mr. Engen is also an active member of the National Ski Patrol and the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, a volunteer search-and-rescue group based in Tucson.
