Brent Harrison Manchester of Santa Barbara, 1957-2024 | The obituaries

Brent Manchester passed away on April 28, 2024. He was always so full of energy and had a true love of life. He thoroughly enjoyed his time with this family; his sons, Ryan and Adam and wife, Carla.

Brent loved the water and swam and played water polo for Dos Pueblos High School where he graduated in 1975. He became a certified scuba diver at age 14.

His love of the water also led him to City College’s Marine Tech program to become a commercial diver. Because of the danger of this profession, he soon decided to continue his education at UC Santa Barbara, where he graduated in 1980 with a degree in Business Economics.

He decided to enter the family business, insurance. To learn the insurance business, he took a position with Liberty Mutual as an underwriter. He eventually joined his father at the Manchester Insurance Agency and became the seventh generation in the insurance business in the Manchester family and a self-proclaimed “insurance geek”.

Brent and Carla married in 1992 and welcomed their first son Ryan in 1995 and their second son Adam in 1997.

Brent was involved in every aspect of his boys’ lives. He made them breakfast every day for years, took them camping and fishing, and of course taught them to swim and dive.

He was always on the sidelines at all the T-ball, baseball and football games when they were little. Then as they grew older; Lacrosse, gymnastics, soccer, wrestling and pole vaulting.

One of Brent’s favorite activities to do with the boys was clay target shooting. This introduced him to the Winchester Canyon Gun Club, where he spent many hours volunteering and serving on the Board of Directors. He also took up bird hunting (mostly quail) and adopted a beautiful bird dog, his beloved “Cash”, a Brittany.

Brent and his family have traveled extensively, mostly on a cruise ship. Some of the highlights of the 25 or so trips were Bermuda (honeymoon), Venice, Italy, St. Petersburg, Russia, Fiji, Tunis, Tunisia, the Galapagos Archipelago, and the Andes Mountains.

Earlier this year, Brent and Carla climbed 2,000 feet to the summit of Mt. Liamuiga from the island of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean Sea.

Brent is survived by his wife Carla; sons Ryan and Adam; sister of Tracy Richardson (Mike); brother Craig Manchester; Carla’s sisters Paula Gregoire-Jones (David), Laura Alarid (Joseph) and her brothers, Daniel Gregoire (Linda) and John Gregoire. Also many nieces and nephews: Mikel, Nicole (Nick), Michelle and Kyle (Kaylie), Sam (Evette), Rosemary, Jacob (Taylor), Katie (Anthony), Sarah (Seth), Daniel and James; and nine shining nieces and nephews Roman, Cora, Selah, Sierra, Ellie, Wesley, Jude, Lael and Noah.

He is predeceased by his parents, Paul and Bonnie Manchester.

In lieu of flowers, please make any donations to the Winchester Canyon Gun Club wcgc.org.

Please email [email protected] for memorial information.