Kent Pruefer

Many of us daydream about spending our days outside. Some of us chose professions that allow us to help other people. Kent Pruefer found a way to do both as a land surveyor and engineering technician-professions he chose so he could work outside and help preserve nature.

As a young man, Kent studied engineering and psychology at Virginia Tech and George Mason. A sensitive soul and humble "student of life", Kent explored countless interests throughout his life, including meditation and yoga, reading, skydiving, graphic arts, astronomy, and aeronautics. His younger sister Kate recalls him teaching the neighborhood children about the stars and running down the street in a homemade glider. "He was an artist, a philosopher, an engineer-sort of a Renaissance Man," said Kate. "But he was completely in love with all things natural."

Kent retired in 2013 after 26 years in the Fairfax County government, having served as a Surveyor's Assistant with the Park Authority, a Surveyor with the Department of Environment Management, and an Engineering Technician focusing on floodplain management at the Department of Public Works & Environmental Services. In 1997, he was named the county's Employee of the Year. Deeply appreciated by the people he worked with, he was recognized as someone who enjoyed helping others. In retirement, he enjoyed the outdoors at a property he owned in West Virginia.

"Kent's greatest love and solace was nature. He found happiness there," said Kate. As children, their long hikes together in the Blue Ridge Mountains brought them close. "The environment was important to his everyday life, so it's fitting that he chose to make a gift to CBF as part of his legacy."

Upon his death in 2017, Kent left his home in Fairfax, Virginia to CBF as a part of his legacy. A gift of appreciated real property can make an enormous impact on CBF's programs and restoration work. We are humbled by and appreciative of the generous gift from a man who loved the natural world, and we look forward to protecting it in his honor.