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Mark Baldassare |
Mark Baldassare is Director of Research at PPIC. He also holds the
Arjay and Francis Fearing Miller Chair in Public Policy and directs the
PPIC Statewide Survey¯a large-scale public opinion project designed to
develop an in-depth profile of the social, economic, and political
forces at work in California elections and in shaping the state> '> s
public policies. He is the author of nine books, including A
California State of Mind: The Conflicted Voter in a Changing World.
Before joining PPIC, he was a professor of urban and regional planning
at the University of California, Irvine, where he held the Johnson
Chair in Civic Governance and initiated and directed the Orange County
Annual Survey. He has conducted surveys for the Los Angeles Times, the
San Francisco Chronicle, and the California Business Roundtable. He
holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
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David Janssen |
David E. Janssen, Ph.D., a public administrator with more than 30 years
of experience at the local and state government level, is Chief Administrative
Officer for the County of Los Angeles. With a population of nearly 10 million,
Los Angeles County has more residents than any other county in the nation,
exceeded by only eight states.
Mr. Janssen was appointed to the County’s top administrative position by the
Board of Supervisors on August 26, 1996.
Mr. Janssen came to Los Angeles following a 13-year career with the County of
San Diego, where he served as chief administrative officer for four years and
assistant chief administrative officer for nine years. Prior to his experience
with the County of San Diego, he held several executive-level positions with the
State of California, among them - Director of the State Department of General
Services and Assistant Secretary of the Agriculture & Services Agency.
Mr. Janssen has held memberships in several professional and civic organizations,
including United Way and Rotary, and is currently on the Boards of Directors for
United Way; American Society of Public Administration, Los Angeles Metropolitan
Chapter; National Academy of Public Administration; and USC School of Policy,
Planning and Development Board of Councilors. He is the recipient of the 2003
National Public Service Award, which was established in 1983 by the American
Society for Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration
to honor and give recognition to exemplary public leaders.
A native Californian, he was educated at the University of California, Davis, where
he earned B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science. He is married and
has one daughter.
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| Richard Riordan |
Richard J. Riordan was appointed Secretary for Education on November 3, 2003 --
marking Governor Schwarzenegger’s first cabinet appointment. In Riordan, citizens
of California are getting more than a new Secretary for Education — they are getting
a truly human human-being: caring, courteous, plain-speaking, and highly accessible
to all.
A well established and highly respected attorney, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
before entering public service, Mr. Riordan was elected Mayor of Los Angeles in 1993
and reelected by an overwhelming margin four years later, with more than 60 percent
of the voters supporting his efforts to improve public safety, create quality jobs,
and reform Los Angeles’ public schools. Believing that government fails when communities
fail to take their own initiative, Riordan empowered residents to take responsibility for
the well being of their neighborhoods and called for the creation of a citywide system of
neighborhood councils that give community organizations a greater voice in city government.
The focus of Riordan’s first mayoral term was improving public safety, creating quality
jobs, making government more common-sense and efficient, rebuilding the city’s neighborhoods,
and bringing overdue reform to the city’s public school system.
His reform agenda extended far beyond city government into Los Angeles’ classrooms. He
challenged the stagnant bureaucracy of the Los Angeles Unified School District, demanding
a better quality of education for the children of Los Angeles. Though Riordan had no
jurisdiction over the LAUSD, he led the effort to elect seven reform candidates to the
LAUSD School Board -- each one dedicated to improving Los Angeles’ ailing public schools.
For children with limited access to books, Riordan created the “Recreational Reading Mini-Grant
Program” that awards $1,000 grants to teachers to help them create a library inside their
classrooms. Since 1993, this program has donated $1.5 million in book grants serving more
than 30,000 children in grades K-5. Riordan also launched “Read to me,” a citywide reading
program that encourages parents and caregivers to begin reading to their children at an early age.
None of which should come as a surprise, given Riordan’s record of civic activism well
before his entry to public service. In 1981, Riordan created the charitable foundation
that bears his name with one goal in mind: to teach children how to read and write. Through
its signature “Rx for Reading” program, the Riordan Foundation has distributed some 21,700
computers to 2,100 schools in 40 states and enabled the purchase of 128,000 books for elementary
classroom libraries.
Riordan was also a founding member of the nationally-acclaimed LEARN school reform effort, and
a founding board member for L.A.’s BEST (Better Educated Students for Tomorrow), an innovative
and nationally recognized after-school program serving thousands of children in Los Angeles’
disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Riordan is married to Nancy Daly Riordan. Together they have six children and 6 grandchildren.
Riordan is an avid bicyclist and an ardent reader.
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