Posted on 04/09/2005 12:20:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Claire Dedrick, a former Sierra Club vice president who held several state government posts, has died of cancer at age 74.
Dedrick, a blunt-talking environmentalist, was picked by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 1975 to be his resources secretary. She also served on the Air Resources Board and as executive officer of the State Lands Commission. Dedrick, who died Friday, was the first woman to serve on the state Public Utilities Commission.
"She was an extraordinary person with a razor-sharp mind and compassion to go with it, which is an unusual combination," said Adriana Gianturco, former director of the state Department of Transportation.
"Claire was not a flighty ideologue or intellectual, but somebody who directed her talents toward accomplishing things, whether they were public policy issues such as saving San Francisco Bay, managing the resources of California intelligently or preserving open space," Gianturco said.
Dedrick, a native of Logan, Utah, attended Arizona State University and Stanford University, where she earned a doctorate in microbiology. She joined the Sierra Club in 1966 and helped start the environmental group's San Francisco Peninsula chapter.
A few years later she and her late husband, Kent Dedrick, helped form the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
After Brown appointed her resources secretary she drew fire from conservationists as well as loggers and labor leaders. One labor union official said she was one of Brown's "environmental mad-hatters" who cared more for plants than people.
But Ron Robie, a state appeals court justice and former director of the state Department of Water Resources, said Dedrick was a "real problem-solver. She really tried to work things out and bring people together," he said.
Dedrick is survived by a number of nephews and nieces. No services are planned.
Yup, there's still a lot of that going around these days.. and ya can thank Gubinor MoonBeam for setting her up in Gubamint.
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