Monterey Bay Academy - History of MBA

History of MBA

In 1938, the National Guard relocated the 250th Coast Artillery Regiment to the present MBA site. Named in memory of military chaplain Joseph P. McQuaide, Camp McQuaide was the coastal artillery training center for World War II and became the official stockade for army deserters. After ten years Camp McQuaide was decommissioned and considered surplus.

In 1948, the government tried unsuccessfully to sell the property to Santa Cruz County for $1 as site of a junior college, and to the California Department of Parks and Recreation for a state park. Leal Grunke, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor from Chowchilla, California, was the procurement officer for the Central California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. When he saw the location for the first time, he proposed using it for a boarding school. He met opposition from church officials, and then from the government. Grunke made several trips from Chowchilla to the War Assets Administration in San Francisco to meet with the general who was considering selling the property to private land developers. With the help of John P. Gifford of the United States Department of Education, Grunke convinced the War Assets Administration to give the land to the Seventh-day Adventist Church on August 13, 1948. No money was paid, not even the $1 asked of Santa Cruz County earlier that year.

A condition was that the Church develop the school laid out in its proposal. Despite the pristine location, the remains of the camp included acres of cement and 600 old buildings. Monterey Bay Academy did not start out as an aesthetically pleasing campus. Despite being called "Grunke’s Folly", the school was established in 1949. The school's motto "Where land and sea unite to inspire", was created by Grunke's wife Ruth, while the school's name was chosen by Grunke.

Since 1949, Monterey Bay Academy served more than 8,000 students with 95% going to college. As a part of the world's largest Protestant school system MBA has grown and modernized. The grounds now include lawns, flower beds and Monterey Pine and coastal Monterey Cypress trees that frame views of the Pacific Ocean. The remains of the camp airstrip are preserved, and called Monterey Bay Academy Airport.