As residents of Livermore for over 35 years, my wife and I have 3 sons who attended our LVJUSD schools K-12, then got accepted to and graduate from UC Davis and UC Berkeley. Our family worked hard to support our children’s education, taking an active role both in their academic and athletic endeavors. I am the third generation of a family that migrated to our Country, did not speak English and had little means. Despite the challenges, my grandparents attained prosperity through education and hard work. That work ethic and respect for education was passed down through my parents and on to our children.

I enjoyed my career as a professional Firefighter, and throughout my 28 years on the job, I forged partnerships throughout the state and as far as Capitol Hill, all in an effort to achieve excellence for our organization. Eight years ago I pledged, “…I would like to bring my experience in government budgets, labor-management relations and community service to our Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District”, and I’ve kept my word. Furthermore, I pledged to improve our school facilities. Today we have completed several transformational projects – Granada High School, Livermore High School, East Ave Middle School and Joe Michell K-8.

Our family places great value in education and it is my goal to make the educational experience of Livermore students nothing short of EXCELLENT.

My Experience

These past 8 years I have served as your Trustee on the LVJUSD Board of Education, seven of which I have been elected President. Prior, I have served on School Site Council, Citizen’s Oversight on Measure M and in June of 2014 and Co-Chaired Measure G (approximately $28 million dollars, over seven years to Livermore Schools for STEM and small class sizes). I’ve coached numerous youth teams in the past 25 years, and I’m currently in my 19th season coaching high school sports here in town.

Sworn to protect the public, I spent an entire career building community partnerships and establishing a standard of excellence.

As an example – during my time as Fire Chief, we were able to increase survivability from a cardiac arrest from approximately 10% (far above the National average) to a stunning 31%, and we accomplished this during the worst economic collapse since the Depression. We were able to achieve this and many other things due to the establishment of trust, the attraction and retention of the best candidates, the advancement of partnerships and the adherence to a goal of achieving excellence in all areas critical to the mission.

Serving our Livermore schools these past eight years, I’ve had the opportunity to see up close what opportunities there are for our Livermore students. While much focus has rightfully been placed upon pathways to higher education, there remains a key area that has not been fully connected – pathways to the professional trades. Opening these pathways, through professional apprenticeships, will provide our students opportunities to achieve financial independence and attain life-long skillsets.

I have been able to propose and see through a vast Solar Program for our campuses. Now fully implemented, (LHS will be expand when facility construction is completed), with zero dollars out of pocket, our District nets out approximately $800,000 annually in energy savings.

Communications are challenging in large organizations. So, when I observed the similarity between my previous experience as a Fire Chief overseeing multiple fire stations and our Superintendent overseeing multiple school sites, I connected a partnership with Cisco. Today our Administration is connected with our campuses with Telepresence. This was especially valuable during the dark days of the pandemic.
Coming into my role as a new Trustee, I sought to establish a Federal connection for our schools. Today, we are connected and have been awarded numerous grants in the areas of promoting social-emotional well-being, substance abuse prevention and Latin-X opportunity enhancements.

These and other goals accomplished, I will say that no amount of effort to improve the educational experience and outcome of our students can be achieved without our Teachers. It has been and will continue to be my escalating focus, to recruit and retain the best professionals available to serve our students. To achieve this, we must undertake multiple efforts simultaneously.

1. Working at the Federal level to close or eliminate the funding gap in Special Ed.
2. Pursuing and achieving exterior grants
   • We have been quite successful so far
3. Close or eliminate the ADA inequity
   • This is a core funding issue that originates at the State level
   • We have made large gains in this effort, and more work needs to be done
4. Achieve housing options for our Teachers and other professionals
   • Housing costs preclude most of our newly hired people from being able to live in the community

Academics is the central core of the educational experience. If the Covid experience has a silver lining, it may be the technology pivot we implemented. 1:1 laptops, increased connectivity, app-based student and parent portals and direction toward electronic text. This shift was inevitable and may have taken far longer to fully implement, but it was necessary. These positive takeaways are now being integrated with classroom learning and other programmatic changes as we seek to improve outcomes in the educational experience.

Safety is paramount and has been the top priority for our District. While the particulars are not discussed, know that technology has been a key factor in our vast upgrades to campus security. Key partnerships with our Livermore Police Dept and Federal government have allowed us to expand oversight on our campuses and provide supervisory capacity.

I will continue to utilize my experience and knowledge of government to modernize our facilities, expand public and private partnerships, save the District money and most importantly – maximize opportunity for Our Livermore Students.

My Goal is that our students, our Livermore students, graduate our Livermore schools well prepared to compete and prosper.

I ask for your support and your VOTE on November 8th!