Candidate for
Board Member; Sierra Joint Community College District; Area 7

Aaron Klein is a native born Californian, and has lived in our community since he was seven years old. He grew up as the oldest of six kids in a middle class family, and began working at the age of twelve, for his dad's wholesale distribution company. After starting in the shipping room, he worked his way up to managing sales, marketing and operations.

Ever since then, his work has been in entrepreneurial business, building and creating new businesses of all kinds, from a web consulting firm that served candidates for Governor of California, United States Congress, State Senate and State Assembly; to a business operations software company that was named to the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance's Tech Index; to building new business models and business units for established companies in the financial and software fields.

Love at First Sight In 2001, Aaron married Cacey Steward Klein. It is a true story that after meeting her for the second time at the age of 14, he had decided he would marry her some day (it only took her eight years to agree). Cacey is a talented decorator and designer who has founded her own business creating distinctive invitations, announcements and cards. They are homeowners in Colfax.

Together, Aaron and Cacey experienced the miracle of adoption when they brought Spencer Daniel Sang-Jin Klein home from Seoul, South Korea on November 9, 2007. Spencer turned one year old on March 17, 2008. He enjoys playing on the floor with Dad, and giving Mom kisses. Dad believes he is a future baseball player, perhaps first as a Sierra College Wolverine.

Four Years of Change at Sierra College Aaron watched with concern as Sierra College went through three years of budget deficits, controversy over the borrowing of retiree funds, and major cuts in core programs, combined with pay raises. After discovering just 48 hours before the deadline that he was represented by a 20+ year incumbent up for re-election, Aaron declared his candidacy for the Sierra College Board of Trustees on August 5, 2004.

After a hard-fought campaign, over 90,000 people had voted for change, and Aaron was one of only three challengers to defeat an incumbent in all of Placer County's over 200 races. He was sworn in on December 3, 2004.

At his first budget review in April 2005, Aaron led the fight for a balanced budget, calling on his board colleagues to establish a policy to build the college's reserves in good economic times. Just 30 days later, it became apparent that a statewide decline in community college enrollment would cause the college's revenues to be significantly lower than expected. Through fiscal discipline and reductions in spending, the 2004-05 budget was balanced -- and the college has had surpluses every year since.

Throughout this time, the college was undergoing a difficult season of change, but quickly rediscovered its sense of unity and common purpose when the nationally renowned Dr. Leo Chavez took office as the college's fifth President. Aaron considers the appointment of Dr. Chavez to be his finest vote as a trustee.

Since then, Aaron has worked to increase access to college for those with fewer opportunities; to strengthen the ties between the college and the job-creating businesses that need a qualified workforce; and to find innovative ways to repair our existing classrooms and labs, and invest in the future facilities growth that our community will need to thrive.

A Continued Agenda for Change Today, Aaron is running for a second term to the Sierra College Board of Trustees. While he has accomplished many of his original reasons for running, there is still much to be done -- increasing access to college for middle class students, reforming our educational programs to prepare our students for real-world, high-paying jobs, repairing and modernizing our classrooms and labs, and working to bring a Sacramento State University campus to Placer County.

In between his family, public service, and his work in entrepreneurial business, Aaron finds time to run, watch movies, read history and fiction, cheer on the Sacramento Kings (and since we don't have our own National League baseball team, the Dodgers), and spend time with an immediate family that currently totals four parents, twelve brothers and sisters, three in-laws and four very adorable nieces and nephews.