Gail Rotegard, 1947-1984

The eldest of four children of June and Richard A. Rotegard, Gail Pamela Rotegard was born on January 25, 1947, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where her mother was a teacher and her father a manager of an equipment leasing firm. She graduated from Radcliffe College magna cum laude in 1968. A government major, GR wrote an honors thesis entitled "The Rhetoric of the Urban Crisis: The Crisis of the American City, 1964-1968." She earned an M.B.A. with high honors from Boston University Graduate School of Management in 1982.

Beginning soon after graduation from Radcliffe, GR was employed by the City of Boston in various capacities for ten years. She began as executive assistant to the director of the Office of Public Service, helping to establish sixteen "little city halls" in Boston's neighborhoods, and setting up management and public information systems. GR went on to become special assistant (1971-1972) to Mayor Kevin White, and visitor services administrator for Boston 200/Office of the Boston Bicentennial (1972-1975), establishing the service network used by downtown visitors and supervising physical improvement projects. From 1975 to 1978 she served as executive assistant in the office of Deputy Mayor Katharine D. Kane, where, as chief of staff, she oversaw $20 million in federal and state aid, and twenty-one city agencies, boards, and commissions. As project leader for the Boston Plan-a proposal for investment in the city-she identified opportunities for joint public-private investment and helped seek financing.

GR left city government in November 1978, taking a post as program analyst and intergovernmental specialist in the director's office of Region I, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. There she evaluated HEW programs, focusing on user and provider experiences in hospitals, schools, and social service agencies. She had sole responsibility for a hospital cost control study that was presented at Vermont legislative hearings and resulted in Medicaid fee changes in that state. In September 1980 she became development director at the Judge Baker Guidance Center, a children's mental health facility; she established the development office, initiated a capital drive for a major construction project, and was responsible for some aspects of financial planning and all public relations and communications.

While employed in these various positions, GR served as a consultant to a number of organizations, doing studies of Boston's Model Cities Program and of the Job Corps, and a plan for a national park and investment program for Lowell, Massachusetts. Honored in 1974 for her "Outstanding Contribution to City of Boston" by the Mayor's Committee on the Status of Women, she was also appointed to the Advisory Committee on Tourism and Recreation of the Federal Energy Administration (1974-1975), and to the executive committee of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (1976-1978).

GR married Elliot Friedman, a government administrator, in September 1974. Twin boys, Benjamin and Daniel, were born in July 1978. GR died of cancer in May 1984.

From the guide to the Papers, 1967-1984, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)