Jim and Ninnette Gildea: Railroad Pioneer to Environmental Activist

Jim Gildea was born into a poor Irish family in Leadville, Colorado, an old mining town high in the Rocky Mountains, and later became a self-taught engineer, attaining the position of Executive Vice President of Union Pacific Railroad. As a colonel in World War II he was in charge of delivering supplies to the Soviet Army through Iran, an achievement for which he was later awarded the Medal of Lenin. When the Allies occupied France, Colonel Gildea met Marie Antoinette (Ninette) Buzet, a Parisian who was to be his lifelong companion. Ninette, an accomplished pianist and actress, owned a prominent bookstore and salon that attracted many notables of her time including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Andre Gide, and Jean Paul Sartre.

Aware of his railroad accomplishments, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia recruited Jim to oversee the construction of the Aramco Railroad linking Riyadh to the Persian Gulf. This moved the country's newly developed oil riches for worldwide export.

When they moved to Santa Barbara in 1959, Jim and Ninette quickly immersed themselves in the local business community. They purchased the El Patio del Mar Hotel and Restaurant on Cabrillo Boulevard and the West Beach Motor Lodge, and were founders of the Moby Dick Restaurant on Stearns Wharf. Their spacious apartment overlooking the harbor with its huge Arabian rug and photographs of Saudi Arabia made it an exotic setting for their many guests.

Jim was the founder and head of the West Beach Investors Group, an entity composed of West Beach hotel owners. When Fess Parker wanted to build a hotel along East Beach, Jim feared this development would cause a labor shortage for existing hotels so he helped organize a broad opposition, including environmentalists led by the prominent author and conservationist, Robert Easton, and CEC's founding Executive Director, Paul Relis. This opposition led to the creation of Chase Palm Park along the East Beach waterfront and the generous green strip adorned with palm trees that complements the park on Cabrillo Boulevard.

In response to the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, Jim joined CEC's board of directors. He and Paul Relis became close confidants and met frequently to share ideas and discuss the future of the fledgling new organization. Jim later said that CEC “was his college education.

Jim and Ninette were lifelong supporters of CEC's work. After Jim's death from cancer in 1981 at the age of 76, Paul Relis and Ninette collaborated on a $200,000 memorial gift to CEC in Jim's honor. The gift enabled CEC to build the Gildea Resource Center, a state-of-the-art CEC's green building that allowed CEC to become one of the nation's first sustainability research and demonstration centers. It served as CEC's headquarters until the organization sold the building in 2004 to concentrate all their resources on addressing climate change. Upon her death in 2005 at the age of 103, Ninette left CEC a bequest of ownership shares in a successful local business. Jim and Ninette are gratefully remembered for their vision, generosity, and lasting legacy.