The Foundation remembers two key board leaders who passed away in recent years.

Robert W. “Bob” Johnson joined the Water Education Foundation board in 2013, becoming the nonprofit’s president in 2017 and its past president in 2020. He spent more than 30 years at the Bureau of Reclamation, serving as Reclamation Commissioner from 2006-2009. He passed away in February 2024.

Mike Chrisman joined the Foundation’s board in 2017 and became its president in 2020. He was a Tulare County rancher with familial ties to the Foundation and a long record of public service, including serving as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Secretary of Natural Resources from 2003 to 2010. His father, Jack Chrisman, a rancher and longtime California Water Commission member in the 1960s, was president of the Foundation upon its founding in 1977. Mike Chrisman passed away in October 2022.