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In
Memoriam
Helen Peters: pioneering woman in groundwater hydrology
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| Helen
Peters (B.S. ’51 CE) became the fourth woman to register
as a civil engineer in the state of California in 1955. Pictured
with her are, left, Harold Yackey (B.S. ’55 ME) and,
right, Bernard Etcheverry, professor (1915-1951) and chairman
(1923-1951) of engineering, for whom Etcheverry Hall was named
in 1964. |
Helen Joyce (Pease) Peters (B.S. ’51 CE), the fourth woman
to become registered in California as a civil engineer, died Sept.
1, 2002, at age 72.
Peters was the first woman engineer at the California Department
of Water Resources (DWR), where she began a 40-year career as
a student aid in 1950. Known statewide, nationally, and internationally
as a specialist in groundwater hydrology and management, she also
advised the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey,
and worked for both Australia and Morocco.
In her first DWR position, Peters supervised the field crews who
documented water availability and use in the Klamath River Basin
as groundwork for the compact formed between Oregon and California
in 1957. When her appointment as chief of flood forecasting coincided
with the 1976-77 drought, the most severe in California history,
she converted the flood center to the drought center.
Peters was a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
the Society of Women Engineers, the American Geophysical Union,
the U.S. Department of Interior Advisory Committee on Water Data
for Public Use, and the UC Engineering Advisory Council. She is
survived by her sister Marianne Robertson of Newcastle, California,
and several nieces and nephews.
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