Paul Clark

Book editor for Pioneer Ranch Life in Orange: A Victorian Woman in Southern California, Paul is doubly qualified to bring this work of California literature to publication, graduating with degrees in history from California State University, Fullerton, and he is the great-grandson of the memoir author, Mary Teegarden Clark.  A fourth-generation Californian, he grew up in Orange and witnessed that community’s conversion from rural citrus groves to urban housing tracts.  Over a number of years he worked on Mary Clark’s original typescript, researching microfilmed newspapers and various archives across the United States.  Paul served as president of the Orange Community Historical Society where he helped coordinate the Orange Plaza Historic District to success in 1982.

He thereafter worked for the Riverside County Planning Department for nearly 30 years as a supervisor of the department’s field office near Palm Springs, retiring in 2009.  He holds the educational distinction of Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) from Toastmasters International and maintains his national planning credential from the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).  Residing in Palm Desert, California, he serves his local community as an Architectural Review Commissioner, yet he also remains engaged with his “home town” of Orange where family and many friends continue to reside.