Dennis McLellan Marilyn J. Reece, 77; State's First Licensed Female Civil EngineerLos Angeles Times, 21 May 2004, B10, 2004, 1995, 1964, 1963, 1962
"Marilyn Jorgenson Reece, the first woman in California to be registered as a civil engineer and the designer of the San Diego-Santa Monica freeway interchange in Los Angeles, has died. She was 77.
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"In 1962, she received the Governor's Design Excellence Award from Gov. Pat Brown for the San Diego-Santa Monica freeeway interchange.
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"The three-level San Diego-Santa Monica freeway interchange, which opened in 1964, was the first interchange designed in California by a woman engineer.
"Urban critic Reyner Banham, author of Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, admired the "wide-swinging curved ramps" connecting the two freeways.
""It is more customary to praise the famous four-level [interchange in downtown Los Angeles]," he wrote, but the I-10 and 405 interchange "is a work of art, both as a pattern on the map, as a monument against the sky, and as a kinetic experience as one sweeps through it."
"Reece told The Times in 1995 that she put her "heart and soul into it" and that she designed the interchange with aesthetics in mind.
""It is very airy. It isn't a cluttered, loopy thing," she said, adding that specifications to keep traffic moving at high speeds necessitated the long, sweeping curves. "That was so you didn't have to slam on the brakes, like you do on some interchanges."
"Reece's daughter said she has a 1962 picture of her mother standing on top of a graded hill with construction of the freeway interchange in the background.
""It's amazing that all that was happening and she was pregnant with her second child," said Bartolotti, who was born in April 1963. "With both my sister and me, when she came back from maternity leave, everyone was surprised because at that particular time as a woman in the work force, once you started having kids your career was over and you stayed home."
"While growing up, Bartolotti recalled, "It wasn't uncommon for my sister and me to talk about what our mom did for a profession, and people wouldn't even believe us. Back in those days, if you were a woman in the work force you were a nurse or a teacher or something along those lines and you certainly weren't a civil engineer."
"In a 1963 story on "lady engineers" in a California Highways and Public Works publication, Reece said she felt that women had an advantage in the field of engineering and "if there's any prejudice toward women, I've not encountered it. Men have always been very helpful; and being a woman has never hampered me in my career."
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"Stahl recalled that as a child, "we sat around the table and listened to all the conversations. All my toys were engineer-related - Lego bricks, Lincoln Logs and Tonka trucks. We'd go to the beach and I'd build dams and roads and 'public work' sandcastles. So that's what we were exposed to."
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