Robert I. Dodge III; Official At HUD, Resolution Trust

Robert I. Dodge III, 71, who held senior positions with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Resolution Trust Corp., and who devised market-based approaches for federal housing programs, died Dec. 6 of a heart attack at his home in Stafford.

Mr. Dodge worked at HUD from 1970 to 1986 as director of the Office of Urban Rehabilitation. In the early 1980s, he developed the department's Rental Rehabilitation Program, which was among the federal government's first market-based approaches to low-income housing.

Mr. Dodge's program departed from an older model of top-down housing subsidies for property owners by allowing landlords to charge normal market value for housing. Instead of having federal funds paid directly to landowners, low-income individuals received vouchers to help make up the difference.

By providing direct support for rent, the program helped increase the mobility and independence of low-income tenants and allowed them to move out of substandard housing. It was the forerunner of many housing reforms proposed during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Dodge also managed HUD's national housing rehabilitation financing program, directing federal grants to states to establish incentives for low-income housing efforts.

After leaving HUD in 1986, Mr. Dodge spent four years as a private real estate developer. In 1990, he joined the Resolution Trust Corp., a federally operated company formed to liquidate the assets of failed savings and loans.

He directed a program to sell foreclosed real estate acquired by the federal government after the savings and loan bailout of the 1980s. Mr. Dodge negotiated the sale of $4 billion worth of property through a limited partnership involving private and government investors.

His work brought him to the attention of Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review, which was charged with developing programs to "reinvent government" by making it more efficient. Mr. Dodge proposed that various components of the federal public housing program be privatized.

After retiring from the government in 1996, Mr. Dodge was a consultant to the governments of China, Indonesia and Suriname and also worked with the U.S. Navy.

Last summer, he returned to the government as a consultant to the FDIC to assist in efforts to address the recent nationwide financial crisis.

Robert Irving Dodge III was born in Albany, N.Y., and moved to Arlington County in his early teens. He attended Washington-Lee High School before graduating from Tabor Academy, a private school in Massachusetts. He graduated from Cornell University, served in the Navy and did graduate work in international relations at American University. In 1982, he graduated from American's law school.

Mr. Dodge was based in New Delhi with the U.S. Agency for International Development in the late 1960s. He spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese.

His marriage to Margann Frantzen Dodge ended in divorce.

Survivors include five children, Robert I. Dodge of Washington, Michael F. Dodge of Stafford, Alison K. Dodge of Kill Devil Hills, N.C., Edward T. Dodge of Ithaca, N.Y., and William F. Dodge of McLean; a sister, Alison Malone of Arlington; and six grandchildren.