Fallbrook resident and retired Marine Corps general Anthony L. Jackson has been tapped by Governor Jerry Brown to oversee the California Parks and Recreation Department. The head job at the Department has been vacant since a scandal unearthed last July caused the ouster of former director Ruth Coleman.

The Coleman administration reportedly hid $54 million in funds from the state legislature, and oversaw the secret payments of $271,000 in vacation buy-outs orchestrated by a deputy administrator.

“Under Maj. General Jackson's leadership, I am confident that the stewardship of California's beaches, forests, estuaries, dunes and wetlands is in good hands and that the confidence and trust of Californians in our parks department will be restored,” said Brown in a release.

Jackson, in a military career beginning in 1975, was stationed in Japan and the Phillipines before eventually ending up in command of forces in the southwestern United States numbering some 60,000 military personnel and 13,000 civilians.