Former U.S. Cabinet member and Duke University economist Juanita M. Kreps was "first woman to ..." in so many roles as she carved new paths in academia, business and government, that it would be nearly impossible to tally them all.
Some stood out, though: first to be named a James B. Duke Professor of Economics at the university, first on the board of the New York Stock Exchange and first to become U.S. Secretary of Commerce, tapped for the job by President Jimmy Carter.
Kreps died Monday in Durham after a long illness. She was 89.
Carter, in a statement released Wednesday, said that he and his wife, Rosalynn, were saddened to hear of her death.
"Juanita's leadership and strategy at the Department of Commerce were a great asset to my administration and earned the high regard of the business community," he wrote. "She represented and balanced well the interests of corporate leaders, workers and consumers from all sectors. She was a determined leader whose actions and achievements set an example for generations to come."
Kreps rose from a poor background in Eastern Kentucky coal-mining country and picked academia as a smart path for a smart woman who wanted to do satisfying work. She worked her way to an undergraduate degree in 1942 and six years later had earned a master's degree and a doctorate in economics from Duke.
She excelled in academics, researching labor markets and the economic challenges women and the elderly faced. She was among the first economists to study the economics of aging. She rose swiftly through administrative ranks, becoming a dean, vice provost and then the first vice-president of Duke.
Kreps also was a pioneer in the field now labeled women's studies, though, at the time, it was simply a handful of people getting together to talk about courses, said a longtime friend Elizabeth H. Locke of Charlotte. Locke was mentored by Kreps as a student at Duke and later worked as president of The Duke Endowment while Kreps served as a director.
In the 1960s and 1970s when more women were sought out for leadership roles, Kreps already had built an astonishing résumé for someone of either sex.
Luther H. Hodges Jr. of Chapel Hill, now a retired politician and banker, said recruiting her to fill a position on the board of North Carolina National Bank won him accolades from the bank. "When everyone was suddenly looking for a woman, including Carter, she was the best there was," he said.
He later served as Kreps' deputy secretary while she was at the Department of Commerce, and then became acting secretary for a few months after she resigned.
Kreps quietly worked hard at everything she took on, compiling copious notebooks in her various roles and constantly studying them, according to her daughter, Laura Kreps. While serving on the United Airlines board, she became an expert on the passenger jet and intricacies of the airline industry. She immersed herself in automotive minutiae while serving on the board for Chrysler.
All the while, she balanced family life with her three children and her husband, Clifton H. Kreps, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.
When Carter asked her to join his Cabinet, she polled her family, Laura Kreps said, and accepted only after they gave their approval.
As secretary, she negotiated a major trade agreement with China and pushed the department into a more active role promoting international trade. Along the way, she developed a reputation as one of Carter's most outspoken and impressive Cabinet officers.
After less than a year and a half on the job, a presidential counselor told her she had taken a third-rate department and made it second-rate. Carter told her she had made it first-rate.
Laura Kreps, then between undergraduate and graduate school herself, joined her mother in Washington for much of her stint.
"It was just an absolutely grueling schedule," she said. "I don't know how she kept those hours and flew all over the world without just going crazy."
She returned from Washington for family reasons, resigning after less than three years so she could spend more time with her husband, who battled depression, and with her children. She came back to Duke and joined various corporate boards and served on academic panels, including the board of trustees for UNC Wilmington.
In the end, Kreps had forged not one, but several extraordinary careers, opening path after path for women. She was invariably modest, though, about each milepost, said her daughter.
"She said, 'Oh, I was just in the right place at the right time' about all these things, and she was," said Laura Kreps. "But she also was intelligent and gracious, and always smiling, and she was always doing her homework, always prepared. Always."
News researcher Teresa Leonard contributed to this report.
