Jo Lamprey ’22H

Jo Lamprey became a champion of the environment and sustainability at the same time she was the owner of a major retail fuel company — an ironic turn that was not lost on her at the time.

It started when she saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” the 2006 climate change documentary featuring former vice president Al Gore.

“I was partway through it, and I said, ‘We have to change the business. We have to wake up here,’” Lamprey said in a 2015 interview. From there, she brought new focus to the Lamprey Brothers company — from selling oil to helping customers burn less oil, namely through energy-efficient HVAC equipment.

When Lamprey Brothers hosted free educational programs for customers focused on sustainability, Jo connected with experts from UNH, namely faculty member Cameron Wake and Sustainability Institute Founding Director Tom Kelly. Soon she visited UNH, learning about the sustainable practices already in place.

She was convinced: UNH was on the forefront of the fight to preserve and conserve our natural resources. Lamprey quickly became one of the university’s most generous and passionate supporters.

“Jo got sustainability right from the start and was drawn to its encompassing nature; she loved our Venn diagram that showed sustainability at the intersection of climate, biodiversity, food and culture,” says Kelly. “She understood at a very pragmatic level that you couldn’t isolate climate and energy from all of the other aspects of sustainability, especially culture and people.”

Lamprey, who often compared present-day sustainability practices to the farming way of life she grew up with, died at age 82 on January 2, 2023.

Prior to being part of the family business in 1998, Jo’s career was in nursing. She was a graduate of New England Baptist Hospital Nursing School and Emmanuel College. She later became director of nursing at New England Baptist Hospital.

Lamprey was cofounder, president and part owner of InterQual, a healthcare consulting company focused on quality assurance and cost containment for hospitals. InterQual developed clinical tools still in use today. Her sale of the company in 1998 enabled her to become a philanthropist.

At UNH, her support and input were transformational. She was a founding member of UNH’s Sustainability Advisory Board. In 2008, she received the prestigious Granite State Award from the USNH Board of Trustees. In 2012, she established The Josephine A. Lamprey Professorship in Climate and Sustainability at the UNH Sustainability Institute. Additional gifts to UNH supported climate fellows in the Sustainability Institute and the green grid at the Shoals Marine Laboratory, as well as social innovation at the Carsey School of Public Policy.

“Jo’s philanthropic legacy is the professorship she established that supports the cross-cutting and community-engaged approach to addressing the climate crisis that the work of sustainability requires. The professorship will continue to have impact for generations to come,” Kelly says.

In 2014, she joined the UNH Foundation Board and served as director for eight years. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary degree for her contributions to climate research and education, philanthropy and volunteer service that have had an enduring impact on the university and the state.

Lamprey, a lifelong North Hampton resident, grew up on her family’s farm on Atlantic Avenue, raising chickens and dairy cattle and harvesting blocks of ice on the pond. Today, acres of the property are in conservation, according to her family, which includes sister-in-law Joanne, nephews David and Donald, niece Debra, cousin Alan and dear friend Carolyn Vinica.

Lamprey served on many nonprofit boards, including those at The Music Hall, the New Hampshire SPCA, Families First and Friends Forever International. She served as board member and president of the Seacoast Visiting Nurses Association and helped launch the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Climate Action Fund.

She is remembered as direct, sometimes critical, but always with “her gaze fixed on helping out,” as her friend, Portsmouth-based lawyer John Ahlgren, recalls.

“Her steadfast, beautiful character and manner, her stepping up to show us how to join hands and lift, that is the Jo I will always miss,” Ahlgren wrote in a memorial about Lamprey.

Lamprey’s hope was that her philanthropy at UNH would take the nationally recognized work of the university and translate it into real-world response. As she once told UNH Magazine: “We need to begin modeling solutions on a scale where people can see a difference — not to simply sustain the good life we have, but to dig deeper — to protect and preserve the good life.”