BIOGRAPHY
Mayor Pro Tem Brewster McCracken has been thinking about the future since he was 14.
That year, he built a solar water heater in his parent’s garage and entered it in the Corpus Christi Alternative Energy Fair. The next year, he used lawn-mowing money to buy a photovoltaic motor kit from the back of Star and Sky magazine.
Corpus Christi never held another alternative energy fair, but Brewster carried his passion for a better (and cleaner) future throughout his career and to the Austin city council.
McCracken is serving his second term on the Austin City Council after being re-elected with 72 percent of the vote in 2006. Brewster has focused his work on the Council on promoting emerging technologies, particularly film, wireless, clean energy, biotech and digital media, and on establishing mixed-use density zones along Austin’s major corridors.
He led the successful effort to make Austin a founding partner with the University of Texas in the Austin Wireless Initiative and the UT Bioscience Business Accelerator, both of which will promote technology commercialization of UT research. He also made Austin Energy the first public utility in the world to open its grid for emerging clean energy companies to beta test their technologies via the Pecan Street Project.
His initiatives in film and digital media include sponsoring the successful bond election to upgrade Austin Studios into the nation’s premier digital filmmaking studio for independent filmmakers.
McCracken chairs the Council’s Emerging Technologies Committee and the Land Use-Transportation Committee. He is the lead author of Austin’s Commercial Design Standards and Mixed Use Ordinance, which is the region’s first comprehensive enactment of Envision Central Texas land use policies. He was named a national nominee for the American Planning Association’s Distinguished Leadership Award for an Elected Official for his efforts in this area.
Before City Hall
Brewster graduated from Ray High School in Corpus Christi then paid his way through Princeton on an Army scholarship. He earned a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. He holds a mediation certification from the University of Texas Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution.
He worked as a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, where he tried his first jury trial on his sixth day of work. He rose to the level of felony prosecutor before he returned to Austin.
Brewster’s commitment to fairness and responsibility has grown out of his extensive volunteerism, first as a school mentor, then through working with organizations focused on child abuse and the security needs of low income young people, battered women and isolated seniors as a member of the United Way’s Safety and Security Committee.
Brewster’s Family
A native of Corpus Christi, Brewster grew up surfing and playing guitar and baseball. He graduated with honors from Princeton University and the University of Texas School of Law. He also holds a master’s degree from the LBJ School. He is a former prosecutor and civil litigation attorney, but his true calling is writing. The Writers’ League of Texas selected his first novel as a finalist in its annual manuscript competition, and his essay on growing up in Corpus Christi appeared in the July 2007 edition of Tribeza. He writes an online column titled The Crow’s Nest, which is named after the newspaper column that his grandfather, the late Corpus Christi Caller managing editor Bob McCracken, wrote between 1935 and 1958.
Brewster is married to Sarah McCracken. Sarah is the Programs Manager at the LBJ Library. Like Brewster, she is an avid reader, and she regularly beats Brewster at Boggle.
Brewster’s son Ford was born on Texas Independence Day, March 2, 2004. Ford loves music and riding his tricycle, and when he grows up he wants to be a T-ball player, a soccer player, or an electric chord.
Brewster still plays guitar, surfs occasionally, and Ford is starting to pressure him to play T-ball.
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