SD-33, Gary Pritchard, a little about me and Why I chose to Run

by Gary Pritchard [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

One of the great things about the internet is it allows you to communicate with as many people as possible with as little effort there is for each contact.  It's fast, it's easy and it's immediate.  The other thing though, it's permanent and it's lasting in some ways.  I've struggled to put my About Gary page together for the Campaign's Website because I knew it would be for many their first contact with me not just as "The Candidate" but as a person who lives in their State and Community.  First impressions do matter and I hope this sheds some light on who I am and why I'm running for State Senate.

Who I am

When I decided to run for office, I knew that I would need a biography. I also knew that I didn't want it written by someone other than myself. I felt strongly that I would be the best person to tell you who I am while summing up the whole of my life experiences in one page.

I can count the times that I've bothered reading a political biography on one hand. The better ones I read came across as disingenuous while the worst were like pharmaceutical ads on TV. I'm hoping for somewhere in between phony and slick.

The Basics

I'm a 37 year old California native who was born in the Central Valley town of Bakersfield and raised near the southern entrance of Yosemite National Park.

I now live in Aliso Viejo with Heather my supportive spouse of 10 years; Charlotte our exuberant five year old daughter; and Sophie our family's high-strung weimaraner.

I am a dedicated educator in the public school system. I completed college in Southern California where I attended Chapman University, the Claremont Graduate School, UCLA, and UCI. I hold a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences and am a tenured professor in the Fine Arts and Communication Division of Cerritos College where I have taught since 1999. In the summer, I am also a lecturer at UCI.

As a tested leader in the California Community College system, I have served as a department chair, sat on curriculum and program review committees, co-authored grants for the National Endowment of the Humanities and federal vocational education programs.   I have chaired tenure committees, reviewed textbooks, authored new curriculum including distance education courses, and have participated in a variety of local and national conferences and symposia.

As your senator, I will follow the same principles that made me an effective leader in education. I will work hard to make sure the people who need the most help get it. I will never waste time and resources with murky issues that advance the interests of the few over that of the average citizen.

I will be an empathetic leader dedicated to improving the quality of education, expanding healthcare to include more of California's children, and maintaining our parks, oceans, and natural resources. I am for fiscal responsibility but not at the cost of cutting programs necessary for the health and well-being of all Californians.

I will legislate on behalf of those among us who want our schools to remain well-equipped and adequately staffed, who want the air we breathe and water we drink protected and maintained, who want our state's public parks and beaches to remain open, who agree that healthcare isn't a privilege for a few but the right of all. In short, I represent Californians who think about the possibilities our state offers rather than its limitations.

More About Me and My Reasons for Running

If you're reading this, you are a deeply concerned citizen who values your vote as much as I do or you are about to write a hit piece on me. Maybe both.

This section is what I wrote when I asked myself why I care about winning this seat as much as I do and what it is I hope to accomplish while in office. If you want to skip ahead, then the short answer to this is because I disagree with cutting funding for public education and believe this is tantamount to bankrupting our state.

If you think education had already failed many of our kids, think LAUSD graduation rates, try thinking about the future of our state with our 'good' schools now facing dramatic cuts to programs and teaching staff. Having taught in the Los Angeles area for over a decade, I know first hand what Orange County residents are about to get a taste of. Anyone for crowded classrooms, overwhelmed administrators, frustrated teachers, and most importantly disappointed kids who perhaps for the first time will know what their government actually thinks of them.

Heather (my lovely spouse) and I come from working class backgrounds and are the first members of our families to go to college. Heather's is second generation Italian-American. She was born in Queens, New York and raised in Huntington Beach, California. My mother was a Native American/Mexican homemaker from the Fort Mojave Tribe and my father a blue collar worker whose family migrated west from Oklahoma. Were just the typical Italian-Indian-Irish-English-American family.

My father and mother were both teenagers when I was born. Three years later my mother's life would come to a tragic end and my father would be a single parent. He knew he had to take whatever jobs he could to support us. Eventually, my father found work as an independent truck-driver and was absent during most of my early childhood. My grandparents agreed to help my father create a stable home for me surrounded by a loving extended family.

As a result of having spent so much time with my grandparents, I grew up having a great deal of respect and fascination for the Americans who lived through the Great Depression and World War II. I listened earnestly to the stories of my grandparents and what kind of sacrifices were made so that there was food on the table and clothes on their backs. Education was what they sacrificed to survive during hard times and consequently became what they stressed the most in my life. They told me that if I did well in school, I would have opportunities they never did.

For them, education was more than the self-centered pursuit of acquiring knowledge or the arousing intellectual curiosity, the defining quality of an educated person was their citizenship. Not simply a product of living in the United States but something that they felt was earned by actions. When my progress reports came home they would first check my citizenship grade. For them, that was the most important element in my early education. It wasn't until I took my first social studies course that I discovered what my grandparents taught me was abiding faith in FDR's ideas of civic responsibility.

Education was decidedly different for me than it was for my mother and father. I attended public school from kindergarten through college and was always encouraged by teachers to live up to my potential. The lessons of civic responsibility that my grandparents valued resonated throughout my life.

Both my parents had difficulties in school. My mother was from the reservation while my father suffered profound hearing loss as a child. In the 1950's and 60's, the school system was not especially sensitive to the struggles of Native Americans or to the needs of hearing impaired children.

In the case of my father, the classroom was a difficult place for him to spend his days. Having to wear bulky hearing aids exacerbated his feelings of low self-esteem which made it difficult for him to ask for help. He didn't want to stick out any more than he already did. What my dad learned was primarily survival skills so that he would not stick out in a hearing world. On his own, he learned to read people's lips quite well while his verbal and written language skills to this day remain rudimentary.

While in school, my teachers stressed that a good education would open doors which otherwise might be closed. They showed me to how think critically about the choices I make. They impressed upon me the importance of thinking about possible outcomes alongside the sacrifices that would need to be made. In doing so, they taught me to see my life in terms of balancing possibilities with sacrifices. This was radical thinking in the Pritchard household where sacrifices always outweighed possibilities for both father and grandparents. I am proud to say that these life skills helped form the person I am today. I think every student in California should have the opportunities that a great public education provides. It is shameful that our legislators have let us and our children down.

I need your help if I'm going to even make a dent in this race, as my wife constantly reminds me, if Democrats don't run then Democrats can't win!