After graduating from Berkeley Law, Brian served in various esteemed roles for the State of California: Deputy State Attorney General, Assistant/Acting Secretary of Business and Transportation, and State Commissioner of Corporations in Governor Ronald Reagan’s administration. After practicing law for 23 years, he served as a superior court judge in Sacramento County for 16 years, stepping down in 2012. He now has an active, statewide arbitration practice. He and wife Diane Miller have two children and two grandchildren.

Brian supports several areas at Berkeley that reflect his many interests: Berkeley Law (“I received such a great legal education and made lifelong friends”), the Friends of the Bancroft Library (“…loved studying up there as a student. I have had a lifelong interest in California history and was privileged to have served on and chaired its council”), the University Library (“Our Class of ’62 has made it the beneficiary of our class gifts”), and various sports teams at Cal (“I’m long-time member of Cal Grid Club of Sacramento and support baseball because of my friend and classmate, Stu Gordon, and rugby because many friends there and its connections to Sacramento”).

“You don’t maintain a world-class university on the cheap,” Brian says. “All in the state should join in its support because of its munificence. In an age of competing demands, it also properly falls on us, the more direct beneficiaries of its gifts.”

Brian remains very active in the Berkeley community, serving as the Class of 62’s permanent president and creating more memories on top of older cherished ones. But it’s hard to top when President John F. Kennedy visited Berkeley on Charter Day in 1962. Brian was the ASUC president at the time and was part of the welcoming reception. He says ASUC vice president Dottie Ahlburg had brought a stuffed Oski Bear that Brian presented to the president for his daughter, Caroline. Brian prizes his photo of that momentous occasion.

“Under a spectacular blue, cloudless sky, Memorial Stadium was spectacular,” Brian remembers when Kennedy later addressed an over-capacity crowd of 88,000. “President Kennedy referred to his administration, the New Frontier, saying, ‘The New Frontier owes as much to Berkeley as it does to Cambridge!’ The crowd drowned out whatever he was trying to say for the next two-and-a-half minutes.”