life story
Shimon is a noted environmental conservation and protection activist, born 19 December 1925 in Wertheim Germany. He and his family fled to America under the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich. After settling in the United States, he was raised and educated in Jersey City, joined the U.S. Navy during WWII, and later served as both a sailor and an officer in the Korean War.
Shimon had a lucrative and rewarding 30-year career in engineering. After graduating from Newark College of Engineering (now NJIT) with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering, he worked briefly as Chief Engineer of Sound Apparatus Company in Sterling, NJ before being recalled to active Navy duty during the Korean War. After his discharge, he joined the electronic manufacturing firm Blonder-Tongue Labs as Quality Control Manager. Shimon also cofounded the RDX Corporation, a manufacturer’s representative coalition in California that expanded to a 10-engineer, 3-office statewide business. It took Shimon years to discover that a large percentage of the profits from engineering sales came from military defense department funds. This prompted him to leave his engineering career and instead focus on environmental and community improvement.
In the 1960s while living in San Francisco he began volunteering his personal time and efforts to preserve, protect, and enhance community livability. He served as President of the City’s largest neighborhood organization, establishing Seward Street Slide Park, and leading successful efforts to reduce residential zoning density. His ongoing work with the Education & Communication Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in the 1980s gave him the opportunity to help formulate environmental education and conservation policies around the world. His copious contributions to environmental conservation can be found in more detail here.
Here is an account of his life in his own words:
"I believe that the childhood cruelties I experienced in Germany have made me more compassionate towards all individuals and all species—and more sensitive to any wrongs or acts of cruelty committed against them. This has inspired me to help improve the lives of others.
In my early adult life, I married Effie Kuriloff, a woman with similar environmental, social and political values.
We both inculcated these values onto our children: Nomi, Daria, and David. Nomi and Daria are both deep-rooted practicing environmentalists. I volunteered my spare time to improve the livability of my community. I led and fought for neighborhood parks, lower density housing, bicycle lanes, clean air and “clean” politics. etc. My second wife, Naomi, shares these values.
I had been proud to fight for the United States, my adopted country, after Germany and Japan attacked it. However, over the years I started to realize that most wars are avoidable if a country’s priorities were directed to helping solve economic and social ills instead of preparing for or waging wars. Ironically, the Germany I fled that had built a war machine that almost conquered all of Europe, was able to recover and become an economic giant, because the winning allies prohibited it from diverting vast funds to build a new military infrastructure!
By contrast, there now exists in the USA a “Military-Industrial-Complex" that prioritizes military and war spending over peaceful people-and-infrastructure spending. It took me years to discover that almost all profits made by the engineering sales firm that I co-owned came from military funding. Therefore, in 1978, I mustered the courage to leave my prosperous engineering business for a full-time career to help the world’s threatened and endangered species and their environment. I hope others will scrutinize the global military-industrial-complex that succeeds in military-over-peace spending, and recognize that it must be defeated before it succeeds in fomenting new major conflicts.
My first job of my new “peaceful” environmental career was as Director of American Youth Hostel’s (AYH) San Francisco Council, where I spearheaded the development of five environmentally-protected hostels along the California Coast that annually accommodated about 100,000 occupants from almost every country each year. I then resigned to accept a special 6-month assignment from AYH’s national office to develop a long-range plan for a hostel chain stretching from Canada to Mexico.
During that period, I was invited by my lifelong friend, Dr. Albert Baez, to join the Education & Communication Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN): the world’s most powerful environmental protection organization. During my 13-year tenure, I attended conferences, meetings, and workshops in the United States, New Zealand, Argentina, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, and Switzerland, helping to formulate environmental education and conservation policies.
Soon thereafter, while visiting Assisi, Italy, in 1981, to admire the songbirds made famous by St. Francis (the patron saint of ecology 800 years earlier), I was shocked to discover that local hunters had shot almost all of them. I launched The Assisi Bird Campaign (ABC), a successful international campaign that succeeded in permanently banning hunting of that city’s songbirds. This effort inspired the heretofore besieged Italian community to better organize. At the conclusion of the Assisi Bird Campaign, Marisa and I, joined by globally renowned environmentalist David Brower, founded the Assisi Nature Council (ANC) to continue the protection of wildlife and its environment both in Italy and around the world. While Marisa chaired ANC, I returned to the USA to organize ANC-USA, later renamed Action for Nature. AFN has focused on recognizing and awarding young eco-heroes around the world for successfully finding and fixing environmental problems in their communities on their own initiative. We have recognized and awarded over 200 eco-heroes from over 25 countries. I moved on to become Director of the Whale Center, working to protect whales and the oceans. I managed the Center’s Whale Bus Program that sent our educators to schools to educate tens of thousands of students annually about whales and the oceans. I also managed our Whale Boat trips and the “Evening at the Whale Center” education program.
After that, I became a freelance environmental writer and “troublemaker”, helping to protect the dolphins of Western Australia and to support the establishment of Shark Bay Marine Park as a permanent sea-life refuge.
I continued my lifelong environmental protection campaign by adopting a new career as Technical Publication Editor-Biosciences, with the USDA Forest Service, the world’s largest forest protection organization, until my retirement.
During that period, I also co-led a global campaign to change the destructive harvesting of thousands of wild yew trees. These trees are felled to extract Taxol (a powerful anti-cancer chemical) from their bark. By adopting tree-saving techniques such as establishing plantations and organizing public conferences to enlist public support, I did my part to protect the world's wild yew population.
After retirement, I have continued to fight for a healthy environment as a retired unpaid “environmental trouble maker without a portfolio” — a position I plan to continue to hold until my death!
It is my hope that this documentary about my life, "Transcending Terror", inspires you, whatever your age, nationality, ethnicity, or social status, to reflect about your life, your dreams and your aspirations. May it inspire you to thank those who helped you and to understand those who hurt or ignored you. Remember that we are all fellow refugees, whatever our skin color, religion, or nationality—all passing through a temporary process called “Life” on this temporary rotating refuge called 'Earth'!"
Shimon had a lucrative and rewarding 30-year career in engineering. After graduating from Newark College of Engineering (now NJIT) with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering, he worked briefly as Chief Engineer of Sound Apparatus Company in Sterling, NJ before being recalled to active Navy duty during the Korean War. After his discharge, he joined the electronic manufacturing firm Blonder-Tongue Labs as Quality Control Manager. Shimon also cofounded the RDX Corporation, a manufacturer’s representative coalition in California that expanded to a 10-engineer, 3-office statewide business. It took Shimon years to discover that a large percentage of the profits from engineering sales came from military defense department funds. This prompted him to leave his engineering career and instead focus on environmental and community improvement.
In the 1960s while living in San Francisco he began volunteering his personal time and efforts to preserve, protect, and enhance community livability. He served as President of the City’s largest neighborhood organization, establishing Seward Street Slide Park, and leading successful efforts to reduce residential zoning density. His ongoing work with the Education & Communication Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in the 1980s gave him the opportunity to help formulate environmental education and conservation policies around the world. His copious contributions to environmental conservation can be found in more detail here.
Here is an account of his life in his own words:
"I believe that the childhood cruelties I experienced in Germany have made me more compassionate towards all individuals and all species—and more sensitive to any wrongs or acts of cruelty committed against them. This has inspired me to help improve the lives of others.
In my early adult life, I married Effie Kuriloff, a woman with similar environmental, social and political values.
We both inculcated these values onto our children: Nomi, Daria, and David. Nomi and Daria are both deep-rooted practicing environmentalists. I volunteered my spare time to improve the livability of my community. I led and fought for neighborhood parks, lower density housing, bicycle lanes, clean air and “clean” politics. etc. My second wife, Naomi, shares these values.
I had been proud to fight for the United States, my adopted country, after Germany and Japan attacked it. However, over the years I started to realize that most wars are avoidable if a country’s priorities were directed to helping solve economic and social ills instead of preparing for or waging wars. Ironically, the Germany I fled that had built a war machine that almost conquered all of Europe, was able to recover and become an economic giant, because the winning allies prohibited it from diverting vast funds to build a new military infrastructure!
By contrast, there now exists in the USA a “Military-Industrial-Complex" that prioritizes military and war spending over peaceful people-and-infrastructure spending. It took me years to discover that almost all profits made by the engineering sales firm that I co-owned came from military funding. Therefore, in 1978, I mustered the courage to leave my prosperous engineering business for a full-time career to help the world’s threatened and endangered species and their environment. I hope others will scrutinize the global military-industrial-complex that succeeds in military-over-peace spending, and recognize that it must be defeated before it succeeds in fomenting new major conflicts.
My first job of my new “peaceful” environmental career was as Director of American Youth Hostel’s (AYH) San Francisco Council, where I spearheaded the development of five environmentally-protected hostels along the California Coast that annually accommodated about 100,000 occupants from almost every country each year. I then resigned to accept a special 6-month assignment from AYH’s national office to develop a long-range plan for a hostel chain stretching from Canada to Mexico.
During that period, I was invited by my lifelong friend, Dr. Albert Baez, to join the Education & Communication Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN): the world’s most powerful environmental protection organization. During my 13-year tenure, I attended conferences, meetings, and workshops in the United States, New Zealand, Argentina, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, and Switzerland, helping to formulate environmental education and conservation policies.
Soon thereafter, while visiting Assisi, Italy, in 1981, to admire the songbirds made famous by St. Francis (the patron saint of ecology 800 years earlier), I was shocked to discover that local hunters had shot almost all of them. I launched The Assisi Bird Campaign (ABC), a successful international campaign that succeeded in permanently banning hunting of that city’s songbirds. This effort inspired the heretofore besieged Italian community to better organize. At the conclusion of the Assisi Bird Campaign, Marisa and I, joined by globally renowned environmentalist David Brower, founded the Assisi Nature Council (ANC) to continue the protection of wildlife and its environment both in Italy and around the world. While Marisa chaired ANC, I returned to the USA to organize ANC-USA, later renamed Action for Nature. AFN has focused on recognizing and awarding young eco-heroes around the world for successfully finding and fixing environmental problems in their communities on their own initiative. We have recognized and awarded over 200 eco-heroes from over 25 countries. I moved on to become Director of the Whale Center, working to protect whales and the oceans. I managed the Center’s Whale Bus Program that sent our educators to schools to educate tens of thousands of students annually about whales and the oceans. I also managed our Whale Boat trips and the “Evening at the Whale Center” education program.
After that, I became a freelance environmental writer and “troublemaker”, helping to protect the dolphins of Western Australia and to support the establishment of Shark Bay Marine Park as a permanent sea-life refuge.
I continued my lifelong environmental protection campaign by adopting a new career as Technical Publication Editor-Biosciences, with the USDA Forest Service, the world’s largest forest protection organization, until my retirement.
During that period, I also co-led a global campaign to change the destructive harvesting of thousands of wild yew trees. These trees are felled to extract Taxol (a powerful anti-cancer chemical) from their bark. By adopting tree-saving techniques such as establishing plantations and organizing public conferences to enlist public support, I did my part to protect the world's wild yew population.
After retirement, I have continued to fight for a healthy environment as a retired unpaid “environmental trouble maker without a portfolio” — a position I plan to continue to hold until my death!
It is my hope that this documentary about my life, "Transcending Terror", inspires you, whatever your age, nationality, ethnicity, or social status, to reflect about your life, your dreams and your aspirations. May it inspire you to thank those who helped you and to understand those who hurt or ignored you. Remember that we are all fellow refugees, whatever our skin color, religion, or nationality—all passing through a temporary process called “Life” on this temporary rotating refuge called 'Earth'!"
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