Richard Clay Wilson Jr. served in local government for 38 years, including 29 years as city manager of Santa Cruz, Calif., retiring in 2010 to write about management in the public sector. He is the author of Rethinking Public Administration: the Case for Management, a revised edition of which was published in January 2016, and The Loma Prieta Earthquake: What One City Learned, published in 1991.
Before becoming assistant city manager in Santa Cruz in 1979 and then city manager in 1981, Wilson served as finance director and assistant city manager in El Cerrito, Calif. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his master's degree in public administration from the University of Kansas at Lawrence.
