Abhay Bhushan volunteered with Earth Day 1990, spending countless hours on the phone to India as the global event took shape.

After Earth Day, Abhay was a driving force in making Xerox Corp. more environmentally sustainable. As a result, Xerox saved more than $200 million per year by reusing, remanufacturing, and recycling old equipment, recycling copy cartridges, and minimizing and reusing recycled packaging materials. Xerox also saved money by using electricity more efficiently, installed motion-sensor lighting, energy efficient lights and ballasts, and automatic power­ saving sensors for work stations not in use.

In 1992 Abhay was instrumental in the Schools Group securing a grant of $20,000 from the Barbara Gauntlett Foundation. Abhay gave the Schools Group a leadership training at their 1993 retreat.

Abhay served on the BAA Council from 1990 to 1993, on the Advisory Boards for Bay Area Earth Day 1993 and 1994, and on the Advisory Board for the Arastradero Preserve Project in 1996. He also had a seat on the board of the Peninsula Conservation Center from 1989 to 1993.

He was an avid bicyclist, IronMan triathlete, and marathoner. He married Cybele (Judith) Bhushan.

For decades Abhay has supported the work of Indians for Collective Action, an association of Bay Area professionals who have established careers in technology and business but want to make positive social impact.

Post BAA

Abhay left Xerox in 1995 to cofound YieldUp International, and Portola Communications, which was bought by Netscape in 1997. He has continued his technology career with chairmanships at several Silicon Valley companies.

Abhay was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2023, as an Internet pioneer who laid the groundwork for FTP and email in the 1960s and ’70s with his work at MIT and ARPANET. “As the author of more than 20 RFCs [Request for Comments], Bhushan was responsible for codifying many standards for both the future Internet and e-mail. Among other rules, his RFCs established the format for e-mail headers, including the use of the @ sign,” reports the Internet Hall of Fame.