Jeff Arthur leaves a legacy of environmental protection throughout California.

Jeffrey David Arthur, former Carmel resident, died last Friday of a heart attack at age 58. While his name will not be immediately familiar to most, his quiet and extensive work on the state’s environmental policy affected every Californian.

Arthur served as a legislative consultant on natural resources and wildlife issues for the state. He authored an array of bills and organized funding for ambitious projects, most recently an unfinished plan for a Sacramento-Los Angeles commuter train.

A problematic project generally deemed unfeasible, the idea of a commuter train linking Northern and Southern California nevertheless inspired Arthur to raise funding and even work out a time schedule.

“Jeff knew how to get things done,” says his friend Corey Brown, the former executive director of the Big Sur Land Trust, now a Sacramento-based attorney focusing on environmental issues, “He was a true craftsman.”

Not everyone in his family realized Arthur’s dynamic role in shaping California’s environmental policy until after his death.

“We’re just understanding in the last week,” says his brother, Larry Arthur. “He was very understated. He wanted to maintain an objective point of view. If he wrote a bill about an issue he was working on and it passed, he would just fade into the background.”

With an intense attention to details and organization, Arthur relied solely on facts to get his ideas across.

“He understood,” Brown says, “that you can get a lot done if you don’t mind who gets credit for it.”

But Arthur didn’t limit his organizational ability to his career.

“One of the things that will be missed,” says his brother, “is that he loved to organize camping trips. He delighted in taking people out and exposing them to nature.”

“He loved the American River Parkway,” says Brown, referring to the large park that stretches through the heart of Sacramento, “and organizing hikes in the Sierra Nevadas.”

History captivated him, and he studied local landmarks all over the state. “He’d visit me,” his brother says, “and he’d tell me things about local landmarks around my home that I didn’t know. He was planning a holiday vacation to Costa Rica, and he was studying the area, getting ready.”

“Jeff not only believed in protecting the environment,” says Brown, “but he acted consistently with his beliefs. He rode his bike every day. His family bought a house in an urban area, and restored it, so as not to promote urban sprawl.”

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in political science from Claremont Mc-Kenna College, Arthur earned his law degree from UCLA in 1972. Combining a lifelong appreciation for the outdoors with a keen mind for politics, he found his way to Sacramento, where he served on a variety of committees and assemblies.

Arthur’s more visible roles were as the chief consultant to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife from 1978-87 and to the Assembly Natural Resources Committee in 2002, a position that he took despite being semi-retired.

His devotion to his work compelled him at a point when his contemporaries’ careers were slowing down. Last year he was instrumental in organizing a state Senate hearing on ocean protection issues. The hearing has helped pass some important coastal and sea protection bills.

“He was a visionary,” says Brown, “A leader in protecting the environment. He wrote the first state conservation bond act in 1984, which funded over 300 conservation projects and served as a model for wildlife bond acts.”

Leaving a model that extends past his bills and bonds, Arthur hand picked and deeply influenced the next generation of environmental workers.

“His legacy” says Brown, “will be seen from wild salmon streams all the way down to coastal lagoons.”