A Tribute to a California Pension Fund’s Guiding Hand

They were the power couple of California’s pension assets. But their romance was largely a secret, even at the time of their wedding more than a year ago.

On Monday, however, one half of this couple, Anne Sheehan, the director of corporate governance at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the second-biggest public pension fund in the United States, stood behind a lectern to eulogize her husband, Joseph Dear, who died of prostate cancer last month at the age of 62.

Mr. Dear was the chief investment officer of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, which is the biggest public pension fund in the nation. He worked in Sacramento; she in the neighboring city of West Sacramento. What they shared was a willingness to wield their influence to shake up corporate America.

In her tribute, delivered in a drab auditorium before the start of a Calpers board meeting, Ms. Sheehan opened a small window into her relationship with her deceased husband.

“Joe used to joke that he came to Calpers looking for a challenge, and succeeded beyond his wildest expectations,” Ms. Sheehan said.

Mr. Dear started at Calpers in March 2009, when the pension fund had been badly wounded in the financial crisis. His prescription â€" relatively risky investments in private equity and hedge funds â€" drew controversy at the time, but it helped restore the fund’s assets to above their level before the crisis.

Though a government employee, Mr. Dear was a powerful figure in the world of Wall Street money management. He used his influence to negotiate lower fees from private equity firms that wanted his business, furthering a trend across the industry.

Ms. Sheehan, for her part, has taken on powerful companies whose governance she sees as lacking. In 2012, when Facebook was preparing to go public, she sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, expressing her disappointment that the company’s board of directors included not a single woman.

Months later, Facebook named Sheryl Sandberg, its chief operating officer, to its board.

For a time, Mr. Dear referred to Ms. Sheehan as his “friend Anne,” according to his daughter from an earlier marriage, Annie. It was during a June 2009 trip to Paris that his daughter learned Mr. Dear had stronger feelings for the corporate governance official across town.

“I knew something was different when my dad ordered a bottle of wine for the table â€" expensive wine, not his usual microbrew,” his daughter said during the memorial on Monday.

The couple was married in late 2012, according to the trade publication Pensions & Investments. Tellingly, the article breaking the news of their union was published in May 2013. It noted that many of their colleagues “don’t even know the couple recently tied the knot.”

On Monday, Mr. Dear’s son, Ben, encouraged listeners to follow his father’s example. “Honor him by striving for your own path, and not the path you perceive will please others,” he said.

Ms. Sheehan, the last one to speak, choked up as she read passages from Mr. Dear’s notebook. In one example, Mr. Dear, preparing for a media interview about his new job at Calpers, described his passion for investing public money.

“This probably sounds too serious, perhaps a bit pretentious,” Ms. Sheehan read, quoting Mr. Dear. “But it is me.”