California IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Wilson Picks Forestry Director

Gov. Pete Wilson has named as his director of forestry a Northern California lumberman with strong environmental credentials who is expected to move the agency toward more strict regulation of logging practices. Richard Wilson, 57, a Mendocino County timberland owner and rancher who is no relation to the governor, was selected to replace Hal Walt as head of the embattled Forestry Department, an agency often criticized by environmentalists for being too closely tied to the timber industry. Wilson also named a new director for the mammoth California Department of Transportation: Maj. Gen. James W. van Loben Sels, 55, a career officer with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, who takes over in October.