California’s oldest and longest-serving state worker has died at age 102 after practically eight a long time on the job.
Could Lee was a number of weeks shy of her birthday when she died Could 26, in accordance with Jennifer Iida, a spokesperson for the California Division of Basic Companies. Lee labored for the state for 79 years, beginning in accounting on the Division of Finance in 1943, then switching to the Division of Basic Companies when it was created in 1963.
After retiring from the Division of Basic Companies within the Nineteen Eighties, Lee labored as a retired annuitant till final 12 months, that means she was rehired onto the payroll as a part-time employee whereas drawing retirement advantages.
“We’ll significantly miss her enthusiastic and cheerful disposition alongside together with her irreplaceable institutional data,” Iida stated in a press release. “She was an inspiration to us all.”
Lee was honored by Gov. Gavin Newsom throughout Older Individuals Month in 2019, when she was 99, for being the longest-serving state worker.
She was credited with saving thousands and thousands of {dollars} by revenue-generating measures, discovering accounting errors and chopping prices. She additionally wrote sections of the California Authorities Code.
A relative of Lee’s didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In a 2021 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Lee stated she would work till she couldn’t anymore, pointing to her brother who labored till he died at age 85.
Her longevity was due to “good genes and preserving busy,” she advised the Union-Tribune, including that she maintained a nutritious diet of fish, rooster, greens, only a few processed meals and no fried meals.
A celebration for her a centesimal birthday with about 2,000 individuals invited was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following 12 months, colleagues took her out to lunch and introduced a cake for her one hundred and first birthday. It had one candle, an emblem of the beginning of a brand new century.
