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<\/p>\nRod Diridon, the former Santa Clara County Supervisor who was known as the father of Silicon Valley\u2019s transportation system, died Friday at age 87.<\/p>\n
Diridon, who had survived throat cancer several years ago, had been in the hospital the past two weeks after developing sepsis following a radiation treatment in January, his wife, Gloria Duffy, said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to quantify the impact that Diridon had on the way we get from place to place in Silicon Valley. He campaigned for the county\u2019s first half-cent sales tax for transit while he was on the Board of Supervisors, led the charge to create VTA\u2019s light-rail system and chaired the study that led to Caltrain commuter service. He spent his later years continuing to work on models of efficient transit with the Mineta Transportation Institute and raising awareness about climate change.<\/p>\n
Former Supervisor Ken Yeager said Diridon was an important voice in the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors\u2019 shift from a very conservative group to a more liberal one beginning in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think of all the issues from healthcare to county parks and quality of air \u2014 that all started with Rod. And you can\u2019t undervalue what he did for transportation,\u201d said Yeager, whom Diridon hired in 1977 after he graduated from San Jose State. \u201cThere\u2019s no other name over the past 50 years that still resonates the way Diridon does. Everyone knows that name even if they didn\u2019t know who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
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From left to right, Santa Clara County Supervisor Otto Lee, Former Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager and Rod Diridon Sr., pose for a photograph in front of a portrait of Susanne B. Wilson at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. Valley Health Foundation named the Susanne B. Wilson Women & Children’s Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center after the late Santa Clara County Supervisor. (Nhat V. Meyer\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n
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U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, poses with Rod Diridon Sr. during his 80th birthday celebration in 2019 in the Trolley Barn at History Park in San Jose. Diridon is being honored at History Park’s Valley of Heart’s Delight fundraiser on Oct. 6, 2022. (Sal Pizarro\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n
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Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon, rips the tape covering the name of the first light rail line, “Challenge” (Len Vaughn-Lahman\/Mercury News)<\/p>\n
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From left to right, Santa Clara County Supervisor Otto Lee, Former Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager and Rod Diridon Sr., pose for a photograph in front of a portrait of Susanne B. Wilson at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. Valley Health Foundation named the Susanne B. Wilson Women & Children’s Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center after the late Santa Clara County Supervisor. (Nhat V. Meyer\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n Indeed, Diridon never sidestepped a challenge if it was for the public good. He served two combat tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy and proudly rode with the San Jose Rotary Club in the Veterans Day Parade every year in his full dress uniform, complete with a sword. He rarely talked about the difficulties dyslexia created for him unless it was to inspire someone else struggling with their own challenge. He was a true-blue Democrat, a union guy and a feminist. He lived in Santa Clara with Duffy, the CEO of the Commonwealth Club and his wife since 2001, with his adult children living with their families in homes adjacent to his.<\/p>\n Rod and I were both members of the San Jose Rotary Club, for which he served as president from 2009 to 2010, and he year after year outclassed everyone in bringing in new members, often people who were decades his junior in age. Karen Philbrick, his successor as executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State, gave them the nickname, \u201cThe Rod Squad.\u201d<\/p>\n Trains were his passion and had been since his youth, when he worked as a railroad brakeman and fireman to pay for Shasta Junior College and Chico State before he transferred to San Jose State. But trains ran in the family; his father Claude Diridon worked in the railroad business in Dunsmuir when Rod was a boy. He had changed his name from Claudius Diridoni because of bigotry in the industry.<\/p>\n Diridon was only 32 years old when he was elected to the Saratoga city council in 1971, and he toppled a 14-year incumbent three years later to become the youngest person elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, where he served for the next 20 years. He fought to save the historic train station on Cahill Avenue after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and when he retired in 1994 \u2014 though \u201cretirement\u201d wasn\u2019t really in his vocabulary \u2014 the station was renamed in his honor.<\/p>\n Ironically, that tribute may have done as much to create a legacy for Diridon as he had in 23 years of public service. Diridon Station is now a hub for VTA\u2019s buses and light-rail trains, Caltrain and Amtrak \u2014 and one day it may be announced as a stop for BART and high-speed rail. The neighborhood around it is often referred to as the Diridon Station area; there are the Diridon West Apartments on West Julian Street, and the Diridon Market on Sunol Street. As Yeager said, people know the name even if they didn\u2019t know the man.<\/p>\n Former Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said he and Diridon were political colleagues for 50 years.<\/p>\n \u201cFor five decades, Rod embodied what it means to be a community and political icon,\u201d Stone said. \u201cHis passion, vision and leadership in public transportation and climate change leaves an extraordinary legacy to Silicon Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n