Don Brinkerhoff Establishes $10,000 Scholarship for Landscape Architecture Undergrads

Don Brinkerhoff, founder and chairman of Lifescapes International Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.

Don Brinkerhoff, the founder and chairman of Lifescapes International Inc., Newport Beach, Calif., has established a $10,000 annual scholarship at his alma mater, Cal Poly Pomona. The unrestricted award, the largest scholarship ever awarded in the College of Environmental Design, will go to a second or third-year landscape architecture student with demonstrated need and ability.

Mr. Brinkerhoff knows a scholarship can change a student?EUR??,,????'???s life. More than 60 years ago, Brinkerhoff was a horticulture student in desperate need of funds. He sold magazines door-to-door the summer after his freshman year, but was on the verge of quitting school to work. Howard Boltz, a landscape design instructor at the Voorhis campus in San Dimas, the predecessor to Cal Poly Pomona, helped Brinkerhoff line up odd jobs on campus, then directed him to a $1,000 scholarship from the Sears Roebuck Co., about the equivalent of $10,000 today. With the scholarship, Brinkerhoff remained in school and graduated. It was also the impetus for the $10,000 scholarship, which will be awarded in May.

Brinkerhoff parlayed opportunity, serendipity and hard work into a career as a landscape designer. In the mid-1960s, with family in tow, he went to the University of Madrid to study architecture, urban planning and to learn a foreign language. A two-and-a-half year adventure ensued: Madrid to Milan, Istanbul, Athens, Vienna and Rome. Brinkerhoff did a landscape design job in Greece, lived in Italy, visited private gardens and soaked up European culture. He then took the family to Asia, stopping in Japan for a month to study gardens. In February 1968, it was time to come home to California and relaunch his business.

Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, Don?EUR??,,????'???s daughter and the president of Lifescapes International, says the family?EUR??,,????'???s experiences are the reason the $10,000 scholarship is unrestricted, ?EUR??,,????'??giving the recipient opportunities as they see fit, and that hopefully will include travel.?EUR??,,????'??

Lifescapes International emerged as an internationally recognized landscape architectural design firm in the mid-1980s when it partnered with Steve Wynn on his Mirage Resort in Las Vegas. More than a dozen casino resort projects followed: Caesar?EUR??,,????'???s Palace, Paris, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, et al. Red Rock Casino Resort in Summerlin, Nev., also designed by the firm, was the first casino resort to emphasize a desert-sensitive style. More than six years ago, Lifescapes International expanded to China, where it is working on projects in more than a dozen cities. New opportunities are taking the firm to Russia, Italy and Canada, as well as U.S.-based projects in Florida, Louisiana, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.