MILLENNIUM MOMENT

Newport Beach is a city with a passion for clean and orderly streets, and

for 15 years, General Services Director Jake Mynderse was the man who

kept everything spic and span.

Mynderse was educated at Stanford and Columbia universities and served as

an Army colonel before joining the city’s municipal staff in 1963. He

brought his military precision and efficiency to the job, creating a

force of street cleaners and refuse collectors who kept the city pristine

even as its population expanded. City building maintenance improved under

his tenure, and traffic signs looked better. He retired in 1978, leaving

Newport a cleaner place than when he began.

* MILLENNIUM MOMENT celebrates the people who have made a major

contribution to the Newport-Mesa community during this century.