Moments in Time with Dave Van Celve: The Amazing SBABDRC

David Van Cleve has many ties to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Anza-Borrego Foundation. In the 1980s, he was an environmental scientist in the San Diego regional office, where he collaborated with park staff on many significant natural resource projects. In 1989, he was selected to serve as the superintendent of the state park. In 1994, his responsibilities were expanded to include management of six other state parks (Mt. San Jacinto, Cuyamaca Rancho, Palomar Mountain, Salton Sea, Picacho, and Indio Hills) in addition to Anza-Borrego. After retiring from state service, he worked for The Nature Conservancy as Ecoregional Director for the South Coast Ecoregion and added over 1,000 acres to the Park. Each month, Dave will fill in some important issues in the history Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which often dove-tail with the history of ABF. We are grateful for his wealth of knowledge of the Park and willingness to share with us!

And now, Dave’s latest: The Amazing SBABDRC!

Well, that does not exactly roll off the tongue. What the heck does it stand for?

Steele/Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center – operated by the University of California, Irvine. The research center is part of the University of California’s highly regarded Natural Reserve System. It is, in part, guided by a three-party agreement between Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, UC Irvine, and Anza-Borrego Foundation. Like many important projects, it took time, creativity, vision, hard work, a healthy dash of luck, and a whole lot of capital. It is one of the most important features of the Anza-Borrego region. It is the source of tremendous optimism for the future of scientific research, education, citizen science, and community outreach and activism.

If you are involved with Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, you have to look at the world a little differently. At over 650,000 acres (over 1,000 square miles), it comprises more than 40% of the State Park System’s land base. It is more like Death Valley National Park, Mojave Natural Preserve, and Joshua Tree National Park than it is comparable to any other state park in California. Constraints and opportunities exist at Anza-Borrego that are not found elsewhere in the State Park System. Importantly, it is relatively close to urban centers and numerous colleges and universities. Best of all, it is a bubbling cauldron for big bodacious ideas. In the ’90s, park staff began stirring the cauldron around the idea of a research center in the Park.

Before the partnership with the University of California became a reality, the original idea was to create an entity whose mission included research, education, and interpretation. Since Anza-Borrego Foundation was already a park partner and operating smoothly, it was able to add the Anza-Borrego Institute to its portfolio, and staff was hired to give life to this three-legged stool.

The institute was also tasked with building a physical research facility. The vision was to create a “campus” next to the existing Visitor Center in Borrego Springs. We got as far as architectural renderings and elevations. Unfortunately, the fundraising campaign was unsuccessful, and the research center idea never gained much steam. Patience was required.

At the same time, Walter Boyce, a professor of veterinary science at UC Davis (and subject of a future article), was conducting a lot of research (bighorn sheep, deer, mountain lion, and Africanized bees) in the Park. When we would discuss the research center idea with him, Dr. Boyce thought the best approach would be to convince the University of California to establish a field station in Borrego Springs.

The idea burbled about for a few years. Finally, the parks department’s chief of natural resources in Sacramento, Rick Rayburn, met with Alex Glazer, Ph.D., the University of California’s director of its natural reserve system. The purpose of the meeting was to explore whether any California state park could host a UC natural reserve. They each prioritized a list of state parks that could function well with a natural reserve. When they compared notes, Anza-Borrego was number one on both lists. Because of its size and its proximity to Borrego Springs (the Park, ahem, DOES surround the community), its strong resource management staff, and its desire to house a research center, Anza-Borrego was an excellent fit. The game was, indeed, afoot!

Rick and Alex attended a statewide meeting of UC natural reserve managers, fortuitously held in Borrego Springs. They asked park staff to show them possible sites for a reserve and were shown the current location to gauge its potential. In addition to the requisite swimming pool (now filled in), the classic Cadillac (housed in a wing of the country club where the locker room used to be), and a full bar (still in frequent use), they agreed it could be remodeled to serve its intended purpose.

Other potential sites included the vacant parcels just east of the district office on Palm Canyon Drive, a large house south of the Borrego Air Ranch, and the originally envisioned “campus” next to the existing Visitor Center.

Let’s back up a step. In the early ’50s, village leaders envisioned a country club and golf course at the current site. (Country Club Drive passes in front of the reserve buildings). Land was purchased, and a clubhouse was constructed. The main building of the current reserve was the only building there for a long time. The whole enterprise was known as “Borrego Desert Club.”

After the golf course and country club notion was abandoned, several subsequent uses were an art gallery, “The Galleria,” and a refuge for Julian’s evacuees during the massive Cedar Fire of 2003.

Once Rick and Alex settled on Anza-Borrego as their highest priority for a new UC reserve, they had to determine which of its nine campuses would be administratively responsible. Davis was a natural; Berkeley had a ton of experience with natural reserves; San Diego was the closest.

Serendipitously, UC Irvine administrator Dianne Pataki visited the Park during a good wildflower spring and became an advocate for her campus. With her lobbying, underdog UC Irvine was selected as the campus that would lead the operation of the proposed natural reserve. This was partly for proximity reasons and partly because UC Irvine’s reserve portfolio was far less robust than those of other campuses.

The old Borrego Desert Club was chosen as the preferred alternative, in no small part because it would not be ON state park property, but adjacent to it. The Park is always sensitive to building new facilities on the land it was established to conserve.

Next was the easy part – raising more than $8 million, buying lots of land and the clubhouse site, designing facilities, finding staff to manage the ABF and State Park sides, finding contractors in this remote village, and wait, did I mention raising millions of dollars? UCI administrators were excited to be running a new reserve; what they were not excited about was the money it would take to breathe life into it. They made it clear that the project would need to be funded locally.

As with many important moments in the history of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, good people stepped up at exactly the right time. At the same time, the research center project began to get legs, and park environmental scientist Jim Dice was pounding on his calculator, figuring out whether he could retire yet. His abacus must have given him a good result. The lure of a real research center convinced him to make the leap and leave the park service.

Jim cooked up a brochure extolling the virtues of a new research center. In a conversation with Marjorie Beale, a fundraiser at UCI, he also learned that Borrego resident Audrey Burnand was a major donor to the university and also the daughter-in-law of A. A. Burnand. Mr. Burnand, in addition to being an important person in the history of Borrego Springs, had created a foundation that supported medical and educational programs in the village, as well as many smaller local projects.

Jim Dice, who at the time was also president of the Borrego Springs Little League, often worked with Jere Hansen, who was the staff person for the Burnand Foundation. The foundation was a regular contributor to the Little League.

One day, Jim and Jere ran into each other at the Borrego Springs post office, and Jim asked if she thought the foundation would be interested in supporting the effort to build out the project. He told her that buying the Borrego Club clubhouse and restoring a 60-year-old building would be a good place to start. He handed Jere a brochure, and she promised to discuss it with Mrs. Burnand.

Jere soon called back to let Jim know that Mrs. Burnand had approved the full amount for purchasing the land and the existing facilities! Jim called UC and started planning the champagne party. Unfortunately, when the program manager at UCI was presented with the awesome news, he had a few questions. Such as, “Do you have any idea how much money it will take to start up and operate this natural reserve? When you answer that question, as well as where we will get it, come back and see me.”

When you try to raise a large sum, it is extremely rare for one source to write a check for the whole amount. But if you have a good head start, it is more compelling for other donors, foundations, and government grantors to believe your project is real. Mrs. Burnand provided a superb launch for a capital campaign.

Around that time, California voters approved Proposition 84 – a bond act that supported parks, water, and a host of other conservation and education goals. In the bond, $15 million was allocated to the entire University of California’s natural reserve system. When Jim asked Professor Glazer how to get on the list for Prop 84 funding, he was told, “Remember, eight campuses are supporting almost 40 reserves, and they have been waiting for this funding source a long time.” In other words, don’t expect any capital, Bro.

After Mrs. Burnand’s gifts were announced, the park/university research center miraculously moved up the Prop 84 priority list and ultimately received $2.5 million – about 17% of the entire natural reserve system’s allotment!

At that time, the Borrego Desert Club sat on 3.5 acres owned by John and Lisa Scranton. John’s vision was to fix up the old buildings, but it proved costly. Lisa’s vision was to get out from under it while the getting was good. The Scrantons ultimately sold the parcel to UC Irvine. Now that UC was financially committed, the project gained momentum.

Anza-Borrego Foundation donated another 74 acres for the research center site, and about 10 acres were obtained from the Borrego Water District. Burch Construction of Ramona was selected through a competitive process to perform design/build for the project. The refurbishment of the old country club buildings was completed in 2012, and the new construction (classrooms, efficiency apartments, dorm rooms) two years later. Jim Dice and Bob Burch, the owner of the construction company, agreed that the process was extremely smooth and efficient.

Some of the best outcomes of an ambitious project like this are the unexpected ones. A great example is the Teacher Symposiums sponsored by ABF. Elementary, middle school, and high school teachers stay at the research center (I still have trouble writing SBABDRC) for several days. They learn a tremendous amount about the Park and the desert environment. The expectation is that they will convey those lessons and their enthusiasm to their students and encourage them to return to the Park with their families. Amazing.

Use at the Research Center totaled 5,293 user days with 1,759 total users in 2025. Users visited from seven University of California campuses, 14 states, and three countries. The majority of use, in terms of user days, was by universities and colleges (39%). Demonstrating the research center’s versatility and broad scope, K-12 education accounted for 26% of use. Disciplines ranged from creative writing to archaeology and paleontology, astronomy, biology and ecology, chemistry, and soil science, among others.

University-level research accounted for 14% of the total user days. There are 27 research projects ongoing. New projects include, to name a few, research on barkflies, astronomy, groundwater, plants, invertebrates, and amphibians; heat tolerance in plant communities; groundwater-dependent ecosystems; plant community dynamics; local floristic studies; bee pollinator networks; and astronomical observations. Astro-photographs taken by Herbert Hamber, Ph.D., were featured in USA Today.

The seventh year of the BASIC Summer Learning Academy was held at SBABDRC last July and August. BASIC is a nonprofit organization focused on K-12 education in the local community. BASIC is a five-week program to improve academic success by working with historically marginalized students in the Borrego Springs Unified School District, especially English language learners. In the summer of 2023, the Summer Learning Academy had nine instructors working with 48 students. The reading program increased fluency among ALL students, and 75% reached grade-level proficiency. Students in the writing program decreased spelling and punctuation errors by 73-81%, respectively. In the math programs, 100% of middle school students learned multiplication facts, and 81-90% of elementary students improved in multiplication and division, respectively.

Partners such as the Anza-Borrego Foundation and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park continue to support the research center’s mission. Anza-Borrego Foundation offered recurring public education lectures and programs on a variety of topics including: nature photography, birding, Native American resource use, quiet research, California naturalists, and a teacher symposium. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park has used the research center to provide fire and first aid training, updates on the endangered flat-tailed horned lizard, lectures on topics such as paleontology and acoustic indices of bird species richness, and Christmas Bird Count administration.

Jim Dice and his associate, Elaine Tulving, retired in 2023. Kirsten Dutcher, Ph.D., accepted the UC Irvine position as Desert Reserves Director for both SBABDRC and the Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve in the spring of 2024. Sicco Rood, Research and Facilities Coordinator, was recently featured in the Desert Sun for his desert photography.

Special thanks to:

• Jim Dice for guiding this project from pie in the sky to a splendid success story.
• Samantha Young and Erin English for creating and running the teacher symposiums for ABF.
• Rick Rayburn and Alex Glazer for pushing this through a mountain of bureaucratic red tape.
• Bob Burch and his team for a professional and sensitive approach to building a world-class research center.
• Staff at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, UC Irvine, the UC Natural Reserve System, the research center, and Anza-Borrego Foundation for their long-term commitment to success.
• The many donors to the project.
• And, of course, to Audrey Burnand, without whose generosity this never would have happened, and Jere Hansen, for guiding her philanthropy.

Inspired by Dave’s perspective? Help protect the places that make stories like these possible. Become an ABF member, volunteer, or join us for an upcoming program and experience the wonder of Anza-Borrego for yourself. Together, we can ensure this extraordinary desert continues to inspire future generations.