6 • The Southwest Portland Post
NEWS
March 2012
Patricia Alison “Patty Lee” Brownell-Lee
1923-2012
OBITUARY
Patricia Ali-
son “Patty Lee”
Brownell-Lee, for-
mer Southwest
Neighborhoods,
Inc. president, died
last month of car-
diac arrest during a
trip to Mexico. She
was 88.
Lee helped write the bylaws for the
Ash Creek Neighborhood Association
and served as its president for six years.
She also served on the SWNI board,
including five years as president from
1998 to 2003.
Even after her retirement from the
board, Lee remained active, making her
house available for retreats and social
events. For her efforts she received the
Mayor’s Spirit of Portland Award.
“Patty’s leadership skills allowed her
to run efficient, productive meetings,”
SWNI executive director Sylvia Bogert
said. Bogert recalled that Lee would
often bring both neighborhood chairs
and city officials to her home for private
discussions. “She was a generous, caring
person,” Bogert said.
Born in Portland to a farming family,
Lee graduated from Milwaukie High
School and Reed College. She taught
health and fitness at Jefferson High
School before joining the WAVES and
serving in World War II; she was dis-
charged in 1946.
She taught physical education at Reed
before marrying Gilbert Prentiss Lee in
1949 and moving to Montana.
The couple returned to Portland and
settled in southwest in 1952.
In addition to raising sons Gary, Gil-
bert and Granville, and her neighbor-
hood work, Lee had extensive volunteer
activities. She contributed work for
the March of Dimes, YWCA Building
Fund, American Heart Association,
Multnomah County Medical Society
Auxiliary, and Jackson High School PTA.
Lee received the Reed College Foster-
Scholz Club Distinguished Service and
the Oregon Journal Woman of Achieve-
ment awards, and was also honored by
the Portland Chamber of Commerce. Lee
was preceded in death by her husband
Gilbert and oldest son Gary. At Lee’s re-
quest, no memorial service will be held.
– Lee Perlman
(Continued from Page 5)
cleanest of the readily available fossil
fuels—as extractors implemented new
technologies including horizontal drill-
ing and hydraulic fracturing to get at
formerly inaccessible domestic reserves
in shale rock.
In 2001 shale gas accounted for two
percent of U.S. natural gas output,
while today that number is closer to
30 percent. The result of this increased
supply is that the price of natural gas
has fallen by some 77 percent since
2008, meaning utilities can produce
electricity from it much cheaper as well.
“Renewables simply can’t compete,”
adds Swaby.
The final blow to Solyndra was
China’s creation of a $30 billion credit
line for its nascent solar industry. “The
result: Chinese firms went from making
just six percent of the world’s solar cells
in 2005 to manufacturing more than
half of them today,” says Swaby. U.S.
market share is now just seven percent.
Low natural gas prices have also hurt
other renewables, especially given the
slow economy and its stifling effect
on innovation. To wit, the rate of new
wind-turbine installations in the U.S.
has declined by more than half since
2008.
“The fossil fuel industry and its allies
in Congress clearly see the solar and
wind industries as a threat and will
try to kill [them],” says Representa-
tive Edward Markey, a top Democrat
on the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
Regardless of the challenges in fur-
thering renewables, the White House
remains committed to the greener path.
In his recent State of the Union address
to Congress, President Obama renewed
the call for a federal Renewable Energy
Standard that would force utilities to
derive significant percentages of their
power from cleaner, greener sources.
This would provide much-needed
regulatory uniformity and a more
robust and consistent market for re-
newable power, wherever solar panels,
wind turbines or other equipment hap-
pen to be manufactured.
CONTACTS: Solyndra,www.solyn-
dra.com; Wired, www.wired.com.
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