printable versionMemorial Resolution: Rodney R. Beard
Rodney R. Beard, MD, Professor Emeritus of Health Research and Policy, died of congestive heart failure on July 12, 2005, at age 93. Beard, whose 65 years on the medical school faculty were marked by pioneering work in preventive medicine and public health, was an inspiration and role model for his colleagues and students. His professional career was distinguished by pivotal work to establish and enforce clean air standards throughout the state of California. Until just weeks before his death, he regularly attended grand rounds and departmental seminars, and remained vitally interested in the welfare of the department, the medical school and the larger Bay Area community.
Beard was born Dec. 27, 1911 in Guinda, California, in Yolo County and raised in Oakland. After receiving his AB and MD from Stanford, he received a master's degree in public health from Harvard. During World War II, he was a consultant to the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army and later served as director of the armed forces' commission on environmental hygiene. He was an advisor to the Surgeon General of the U.S. Air Force, flying to bases in Japan in 1963 to investigate the cause of a respiratory disease dubbed "Tokyo-Yokohama asthma."
A soft-spoken and thoughtful man, Beard joined the faculty of the School of Medicine in 1940 and served as chair of the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine from 1949 to 1969. He was deeply involved in the medical school's move in 1959 to Palo Alto from San Francisco, helping to plan one of the new medical center's first buildings and to develop the new curriculum. However his work went beyond the medical school to public service on a host of environmental, occupational and preventive health issues. He provided expert counsel on reforming health-care in the Santa Clara County jails, improving the oversight of San Francisco's health department and, most notably, reducing air pollution.
As a technical advisor to the California Air Resource Board in the late 1960s and 1970s, Beard helped to draft the first state air quality standards adopted in the United States. According to one published report, the petroleum and chemical industry had lobbied heavily against stringent standards for lead in air, but Beard insisted it was "necessary for the protection of public health," a position that he acknowledged would ultimately require taking lead out of gasoline.
Once air standards were in place, Beard helped to enforce them. As a judge on the hearing board of the San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District from 1973 to 1989, he meted out fines to companies that violated the rules. "We expect the district to be an aggressive efficient effective air pollution control agency,' he said shortly before joining the board. At Stanford, he conducted research on the adverse effects of exposures to carbon monoxide, ozone, and other air contaminants. He also taught epidemiology, parasitology and preventive medicine to hundreds of future physicians.
Beard was a member of numerous professional groups, serving as president of the Western Occupational and Environmental Association (which he helped to found); the American College of Industrial Medicine, and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine. He was also a medical officer for Pan American Airways. He was married for 60 years to Marion Lucile Harper, who died in 1999. He is survived by a son Philip of Santa Rosa; daughters Julie Beard Spickler of Menlo Park, Marian Beard of San Francisco and Edin Beard of Concord; eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. His family and friends, and colleagues celebrate his extraordinary life and mourn his loss.
Committee: Alice Whittemore