Eric and Linda Brownlee came from humble roots in rural Colorado. Eric grew up on a farm on the eastern plains, and Linda in a small town near the San Juan Mountains. They met in college, got their degrees, and started their lives together in Maryland in 1986, where Eric worked for the US Defense Department for 30 years. Linda began her career with the legal profession in Baltimore, but then transitioned to a Human Resources position in the Defense Department for the final 20 years of her work life.

Along the way, their care of the family cats morphed into a passion for seeking out the planet's wilder animals. Their first experience with the grandeur of the wild came on a whale-watching trip in Juneau Bay, Alaska, in 2002, whereby a bubble net consisting of 10 humpbacks suddenly launched into the sky 100 yards from their boat. Seeing 300 tons of whale flesh skyrocket out of the water was an incomprehensible sight. That experience not only started them on a worldwide journey to seek out humpback whales, but also took them on two safaris to Tanzania to see some of the planet's most-remarkable, and most-threatened, land creatures.

Eventually, they realized that they might be in the position to help rescue and care for some of the creatures with whom we share the planet. The Eric and Linda Brownlee Foundation was founded in 2026, and today it donates money to worthy causes from elephant conservation in Africa to cat rescue in Hawaii. The fate of our planet’s wild and domesticated creatures is linked inextricably with our own; as goes the health of our planet’s ecosystems, so goes humanity. The ultimate goal of the foundation is to help make life worth living for all our planet’s creatures. Their plight is our plight.