about Brewster...

Brewster McCracken is serving his second term on the Austin City Council after being reelected 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.

Council Member McCracken 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.

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.

Council Member 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.

Brewster graduated from Ray High School in Corpus Christi, then paid his way through college at 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.

After graduating from law school, Brewster worked as a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.  He tried his first jury trial on his sixth day of work, and he had risen to the level of felony prosecutor when he returned to Austin.

Even more than his experience as a prosecutor and a lawyer, 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 has also been active in the community as a member of the Austin Writers’ League (which selected his novel as a finalist in its manuscript competition), as a board member of the Austin Public Library Foundation, as a graduate of Leadership Austin and as a deacon in his church.

Brewster was blessed to have his first child when his son Ford McCracken was born on Texas Independence Day, March 2, 2004. Ford loves music, and Brewster’s favorite time each week is when he and Ford attend music class together every Saturday morning in north-central Austin. He never schedules anything that interrupts their class.