Married more than 50 years, Susan Chamberlin, MBA 87, and her husband, Steve, are partners in an ambitious effort to improve local schools.
Though technically retired, they remain committed to doing what they’ve done throughout their careers: building. For more than four decades, as a highly successful real estate developer and architect respectively, their tools were steel, glass, and concrete.
Now they employ different building materials but have similar goals. Where once they created places for people to live and work, today they’re focused on building innovative facilities and providing them to organizations running schools that expand minds and hearts. It’s an educational experience that’s inspiring (and even fun) for hundreds of middle- and high-school students in the West Contra Costa Unified School District.
“We believe all kids should have the same chance to attain their dreams,” Susan says.
Spearheading their educational philanthropy is the Chamberlin Family Foundation, which was created in 2006 with a simple yet powerful mission: invest in the people and ideas that will vastly improve K–12 public education, particularly where inequitable opportunities impede student potential.
For their efforts bettering the lives of others, Susan and Steve Chamberlin have been named Berkeley-Haas’ 2016 Business Leaders of the Year, the highest honor the school bestows.
Read more in Berkeley-Haas Magazine.