Teen Tamer

Beth Bennett, manager of local Department of Motor Vehicles, 1965.

She began working at the DMV in 1946. Bennett left San Diego in 1961, when Governor Pat Brown made her deputy director of the state DMV. As “the first woman to take charge of California’s safety program,” wrote our local daily, “she plans to enlist the aid of women in taming teenage drivers.”

She held the Sacramento job until 1965, then returned to San Diego to manage the local branch again.