Remembering Wrigley Institute Benefactor Bruce Kessler

Bruce Kessler, a benefactor and former board member of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability, died April 4 at his home in Marina del Rey, CA. He was 88.

Born in Seattle, Kessler moved with his parents and siblings to Los Angeles when he was 10 years old. He spent his early 20s as a highly successful test and racing driver before transitioning to a second career as a film and television director. Working on classic series such as The Rockford Files, CHiPs, and Mission: Impossible, he spent four decades in Hollywood, where he gained a reputation for keeping difficult projects on time and on budget.

But it was Kessler’s third career, as a passionate sailor, fisherman, and boating innovator, that brought him into the Wrigley Institute’s orbit. He developed the hybrid concept of building a yacht on the hull of a commercial fishing trawler, so that passengers could both live comfortably aboard and fish easily during extended sailing trips. In the Zopilote, his first boat built on this plan, he and wife Joan Freeman Kessler circumnavigated the globe in 1991-1993.

The trip was a wonderful experience but also eye-opening, says Joan, who survives Bruce and was his partner for 54 years, including a 33-year marriage.

“We went ashore on islands where resort areas were just pristine because they had been preserved and cared for, but the adjacent beaches would be covered in trash from things people had casually discarded in the ocean,” Joan says. “We started to ask each other, ‘What can we do to help solve this problem?’”

Over the course of many more sailing and fishing trips, both in the Zopilote and its successor, the Spirit of Zopilote, Bruce and Joan also began to consider broader questions of environmental impact. They became more aware of commercial overfishing and of the wide-ranging environmental and sustainability issues confronting coastal communities around the world.

Bruce connected with the Wrigley Institute, says Joan, because he saw how the institute was helping to bring awareness to and solve some of those issues near his Southern California home base. He also appreciated the institute’s focus on training a new generation of USC students to carry forward that environmental stewardship.

Aside from his service on the Wrigley Institute board in 2017-2021, Bruce left another important legacy. His will included the bequest of the Spirit of Zopilote to the institute, the proceeds from which will support advancing the institute’s mission for years to come.