As a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Colorado, I took the bus to my first job. I have vivid memories of standing on the street waiting for the bus, running for the bus, and missing the bus that came just a hair early. It never occurred to me that a bus could run more than once an hour. That bus almost cost me my job several times.
Jean paid her way through college at the University of Colorado in Boulder with the profits from a small T-shirt business she started as a senior in high school. After graduation, she backpacked around Europe by train and fell in love with great public transit.
The trams, buses, trains, ferries, running frequently and fast, were such a pleasure to ride. I would love to work towards excellent public transportation in American cities.
Jean has made public service a central part of her life. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, empowering micro-entrepreneurs to start businesses and raising funds to rebuild homes for those displaced by an earthquake. In graduate school she co-founded Students for Labor Justice and later built broad coalitions with Fair Trade USA to promote sustainable products, policies and practices. Jean's Spanish fluency helps her engage with diverse groups of people.
For ten years Jean led communications and public outreach for the City of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, promoting environmental initiatives and critical infrastructure programs. She takes pride in the award-winning Adopt a Drain program she created, which engages thousands of residents to get active in their communities.
Recently, Jean directed community outreach for Ford GoBike/BayWheels and Lime, expanding bike and scooter sharing in the Bay Area and providing 500+ low income residents vital access to sustainable transportation options through a discounted pricing program. Building partnerships, listening to community concerns, and finding creative solutions is what made Jean successful.
Jean has been on all sides of the table: advocacy, public sector, private sector. She knows how to get work done in large bureaucracies as well as tech startups and scrappy non-profits. Today, Jean is active with the Transbay Coalition, a grassroots advocacy group working to improve Bay Area public transportation. She is a graduate of the Emerge program for Democratic women who wish to run for office.
Bay Area residents deserve transit that is fast, frequent, affordable, pleasant, and easy to use. We need new energy to guide us out of the coronavirus crisis to a transportation system that is resilient, interconnected, and equitable. I would like to earn your vote this November for AC Transit Board of Directors, Ward 2.