Bailey ‘74 Strengthens Cornell Atkinson Leadership and Extends Sustainability Collaboration Beyond Campus – April 21, 2021
Bruce H. Bailey ’74 recently made two gifts to support key priorities of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Bailey endowed the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, a top leadership position at the center. Effective immediately, the position will be known as the Bruce H. Bailey Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships. Bailey also generously supported the Cornell Atkinson Sustainability Leadership Training and Development Program, which helps postdocs and graduate students translate ideas from academia to real-world impact.
The Bruce H. Bailey Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships advances the center’s mission to change public opinions, products, practices, and policies required to solve the world’s most pressing sustainability problems.
Patrick Beary currently holds the position, leading Cornell Atkinson’s strategic partnerships team.
Beary’s hiring in 2018 was part of Provost Michael Kotlikoff’s Radical Collaboration Sustainability Task Force initiative. Beary actively engages with Cornell researchers and ext
ernal private- and public-sector entities to create partnerships and consortia that take sustainability ideas from knowledge to impact. Beary has been instrumental in forming new partnerships with Walmart Foundation, Field to Market and the Great Lakes Protection Fund, and enhanced long-term partnerships with Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy. Under Beary’s leadership, the strategic partnerships team has grown to five full-time staff.
“The permanent support for the Bruce H. Bailey Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships will be essential to the long-term growth of this key area of work. It will allow Cornell Atkinson to continue attracting and retaining the necessary expertise to bolster a growing portfolio of sustainability partnerships,” says David M. Lodge, the Francis J. DiSalvo director of Cornell Atkinson.
Bailey’s gift will also support the Cornell Atkinson Sustainability Leadership Training and Development Program. The program includes training in science communication, policy development, and career design to equip scholars better to engage constituents with diverse perspectives and prepare for effective careers in sustainability. Bailey’s gift will help further connections between the program and Cornell Atkinson’s external partnerships, most notably enhancing knowledge-to-impact perspectives from the corporate sector.
Bailey is a former Senior Advisor and Program Manager for Smart Buildings at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), where he also served as the VP of Renewables within the Energy and Power Technologies division. In 2016, UL acquired Bailey’s firm, AWS Truepower, LLC, which he founded in the 1980s. AWS was a global technical and engineering services consultancy that worked for wind farm and solar project developers, utilities, government agencies, and the investment community, with offices on four continents.
During his time at Cornell, Bailey served on the University Student Senate and as the president of Alpha Zeta fraternity. He graduated with a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1974. Since graduation, he has returned to campus on several occasions, giving lectures and serving on the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Advisory Council, which he now chairs. His former firm hosted several Cornell students for work internships.
As a member of the Cornell Atkinson Advisory Council, Bailey advises the center’s leadership on strategic issues central to the mission. He helped launch the center’s Small Grants program for reducing climate risk with a previous gift in 2018.
Mr. Bailey resides in Latham, NY, with his wife, Monica Ann McGuire.
Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability serves as the hub of collaborative sustainability research at Cornell University, forging vital connections among researchers, students, staff, and external partners.