A Salinas woman played an important part in D-Day….75 years ago. Ruth Andresen served as a junior geologist with the Military Geology Unit, which was a terrain intelligence group within the United States Geological Survey. She gathered crucial information about the terrain for sites in both the European and the Pacific Theaters of war. Andresen’s research was used in the planning of the military invasion of beaches (including those of the Normandy landings on D-Day).
Now 98 years-old, Ruth Andresen (who’s mother was a career-woman who worked in the state department in the early 1900s) remains active locally, having served for 43 years on the Monterey county board of education (the Ruth Andresen Elementary School in Salinas is named for her). She was also one of the first members of the California Coastal Commission, worked at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and has been a board member of the Monterey Peninsula Museum Of Art, and a director of The Lyceum Of Monterey County. She is currently on several boards for historic homes, and is on the planning committee for this year’s Founders Day.
