Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Joseph Dear, who as chief investment officer of the California Public Employees' Retirement System rebuilt the biggest U.S. public pension after a $96 billion loss, died yesterday in Sacramento. He was 62.

The cause was prostate cancer, the fund said in a statement. His illness was disclosed in June, when he handed some day-to-day investment responsibilities for the $283.9 billion fund to his second-in-command, Theodore Eliopoulos. Eliopoulos will continue as acting chief investment officer pending a search for a new CIO, according to the statement.

Dear took over CalPERS' investments in March 2009, about two months after its assets plunged to $164.7 billion in the global financial crisis, from a peak of $260.6 billion in October 2007. His timing was fortuitous, as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index bottomed on March 9, 2009. Under Dear, assets returned to their pre-recession level in May.