Pletschet, Cliff

Feb. 16, 1930 - Aug. 8, 2010

Cliff Pletschet was born Feb. 16, 1930  in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada. He died in Oakland California on Aug. 8 2010. His father owned the "Kamsack Times," where Pletschet began working at age 7. Pletschet, longtime business editor and financial columnist, wrote personal investment columns that appeared in the Oakland Tribune and other Bay Area News Group newspapers for more than 30 years. He was very, very good at what he did, and he never had an unkind word for anyone.

His grandmother owned the movie theater in Kamsack, where Pletschet's lifelong love of movies began. He would occasionally pepper his columns with analogies from films such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Wall Street" to exemplify the good and evil the financial world poses. "Cliff wanted to educate people how to take care of their money rather than have them be told how to take care of their money," said Pletschet's wife, Fran, who will continue his monthly investment newsletter along with their son Bernie.

Pletschet, who began working for the Oakland Tribune in 1956, started writing columns on personal investing in 1979 and wrote two columns a week until the spring of 2010. Pletschet tried to educate and inform readers in plain, easy-to-understand language, said Drew Voros, business editor for BANG's East Bay papers.

"Cliff's goal was to help readers understand investments so they could make their own choices. He wanted to empower investors," Voros said. "His conservative investment advice came from decades of observing an ever-changing financial landscape." 

Pletschet also served as business editor for the Oakland Tribune, but his real love was writing columns that deciphered the investment world. He often said that he knew what people needed: education and information to make better investment choices.