Frederic Wyatt; Ex-Trustee on L.A. Community College Board

Frederic A. Wyatt, a management consultant who won a seat on the first Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, died Jan. 25 at a hospice in Arlington, Va. He was 90.

Wyatt was elected in 1969 after the community colleges split from the Los Angeles city school district and were given a separate governing board. He served two four-year terms.

Although elected on a conservative slate, he became a moderate, often siding on issues with Jerry Brown, who used the college board position as a springboard to the governor’s office.

One of Wyatt’s major achievements was his support of the creation of Southwest College in the early 1970s. He also sponsored a ban on tobacco sales in the college district that was adopted by the board in 1973.

Shortly after taking office, he became a vocal critic of the board’s other conservatives for micromanaging campus affairs. He believed that the trustees’ role was to set broad policy and leave administrative matters to the staff.

A native of Long Island, Wyatt graduated from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., before entering the Navy in 1942. He served in the Pacific during World War II, then returned to his alma mater in an administrative post.

After serving in the Korean War, he became an assistant to the president of William Jewell College in Missouri. He later worked in the nuclear division of Combustion Engineering in Connecticut before moving to Los Angeles in 1960 and opening a management consulting business. He moved to McLean, Va., in 1988.

Wyatt also worked for 10 years as a volunteer counselor to servicemen facing statutory retirement and spoke at military bases throughout the country.

He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Barbara; three sons; two daughters; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

The funeral will be held Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Old Post Chapel in Fort Myer, Va., with burial at Arlington National Cemetery.