Former S.D. City Manager O.W. Campbell Dies
O.W. Campbell, city manager of San Diego during the 1950s and the nation’s first manager of a metropolitan county, has died of cancer in Walnut Creek, Calif. He was 80.
Campbell served as city manager of San Diego from 1949 to 1957 before taking a post in Florida as head of Dade County’s experiment in metropolitan governance. He had come to San Diego after 3 1/2 years as city manager of San Jose.
Campbell later returned to California to serve as the vice chancellor for finance at UC Berkeley, where he had earned his degree in public administration.
Campbell’s sister, Elizabeth Adair of Walnut Creek, said that Campbell had never been hospitalized before Dec. 11, when a doctor discovered he was suffering from cancer. He died Friday at a convalescent home in the Walnut Creek retirement community of Rossmoor, east of San Francisco, where he had lived with his wife, Evelyn, until her death in 1982.
In addition to Adair, Campbell is survived by a son, John Campbell of Javea, Spain; a daughter, Beverly Langford, of San Jose; two brothers, Clarence Campbell of Mountain Home, Idaho, and James Campbell of Penn Valley, Calif.; three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
Campbell was cremated Sunday. There will be no memorial service. Donations may be sent to John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, Calif.
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