Judith Elizabeth Ayres Burke

Judith Elizabeth Ayres Burke, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official whose career in public service and environmental affairs spanned more than four decades, died August 20 after a brief illness. She was 81.

Known to family, friends, and colleagues simply as Judith, she brought to her work a lifelong interest in public affairs, a deep commitment to the environment, intellectual curiosity, and an ability to form lasting friendships wherever life took her.

Judith served at senior levels of the Environmental Protection Agency under two presidents. President Ronald Reagan appointed her Regional Administrator of EPA's Region Nine in 1983. During the next five years, she oversaw the agency's work in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific territories, dealing with some of the nation's most complex environmental issues.

After more than a decade in the private sector, Judith returned to government service in 2001, when President George W. Bush nominated her to serve as EPA Assistant Administrator for International Activities. Confirmed by the United States Senate, she served in that position until 2008, representing the United States and the EPA on environmental matters extending well beyond the nation's borders.

Judith's interest in politics and public policy came naturally. Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, she was the daughter of Mary Helen Coventry and William Haynes Ayres, who represented Ohio's heavily unionized 14th Congressional District as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty years, from 1951 to 1971.

Her own interests ranged remarkably widely. After attending the Holton-Arms School, Judith studied zoology and physiology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating in 1966. She subsequently pursued graduate work in archaeology at Leeds University in England and studied at International Christian University in Mitaka, Japan. She later earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1980.

Between her two periods of government service, Judith remained deeply involved in environmental policy. She was a principal with William D. Ruckelshaus Associates from 1988 to 1989 and then principal of The Environmental Group in San Francisco from 1989 until 2001.

But Judith's life was never defined by her professional accomplishments alone. She had wide-ranging passions, an adventurous spirit, and a gift for friendship. An avid fly fisherman and outdoorsman, she found great joy in the natural world she spent so much of her professional life working to protect. She was a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., and the Belizean Grove, an international women's organization whose members have distinguished themselves in a variety of professions and public endeavors. She also served on the board of the Middleburg Forum.

In 2019, Judith added novelist to her accomplishments with the publication of Cowgirl, a historical novel centered on the Tevis Cup, the grueling 100-mile, one-day endurance horse race through California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The story follows a mother and daughter and their determination to win the race.

Judith's own great partnership began far from either Washington or California. She and her husband, Jack (John Woolfolk Burke III), met in Alaska nearly half a century ago while both were working for the Department of the Interior. They married in 1978 and shared 48 years of marriage, a life that encompassed family, careers, friendships, and places that became deeply important to them.

One such place was Squam Lake in New Hampshire, long cherished by the Burke family and the setting for countless family memories over the years. Jack and Judith were married there and returned every summer with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons.

Judith is survived by her husband, Jack; their daughter, Elizabeth Coventry Ayres Burke Berg, and her husband, Davis Collins Berg; and two grandsons, Spencer Ayres Berg and Gilchrist McNair Berg.

For all the distinctions in Judith's professional life, those closest to her remember something more fundamental. Beyond her deep love for her family and friends, Judith had a simple goal: to leave the earth a better place than she found it.

It's difficult to imagine a more fitting description of a life devoted so extensively to public service and the protection of the natural world. Judith pursued that purpose with intelligence and determination, but also with warmth, enthusiasm, and the endearing smile by which so many will remember her.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorial contributions in Judith's name be made to the Holton-Arms School or the American Chestnut Land Trust.

A celebration of life will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, Virginia, on October 14 at 1:30pm.