Candidate for
Council Member; City of Campbell

Jeff Cristina is a businessman, environmentalist, and Vice Mayor of the City of Campbell, California. Since being elected to the City Council in 2010, Jeff has used new ideas and a fresh perspective to help our local economy and promote best practices for energy and the environment.

Like many of us, as a young man, Jeff didn't give much thought to our environment. But after spending time in Southern California and seeing the thick smog and bleak expanses of sprawl in large urban cities like Los Angeles, he became fascinated with the emerging fields of sustainability and green technology. He made it his mission help create a sustainable environment in Silicon Valley.

Jeff went to work at Zanker Road Resource Management, a locally owned and operated waste recovery business, and brought a new commitment and level of activity to their community outreach efforts. His early days were spent working with underprivileged South Bay families as part of a program designed to reduce waste in multiple-family dwellings. He would return to the same apartment complexes week after week to track the progress of individual families, and he found he had a gift for inspiring people to take ownership of their communities.

Taking a different approach from traditional community efforts, Jeff devoted much of his work to the education of young residents and saw tremendous results. In a role reversal, children would teach their parents to sort their waste and minimize the amount of trash they sent to landfills. In just one year using this new approach, Jeff and his team more than tripled the amount of recovered waste in targeted multi-family dwellings, from 10% to 35%.

Following that success, Jeff devoted himself to making Zanker one of the most innovative waste recovery businesses in the country. Their facility leads the nation with over a 90% recycling rate of construction and debris materials. As Director of Marketing and Environmental Development, Jeff currently leads a team that keeps Zanker on the cutting edge of its industry, often working 12- and 14-hour days in search of new clients and promoting new projects.

One of those projects is a state-of-the-art Material Recovery Facility (MRF) capable of sorting and recovering an astounding 85% of household waste. This translates into huge volumes of material that are not buried in a landfill, but rather given new life as usable products such as soils and landscaping materials.

At home, Jeff leads by example. He's very cautious about what he purchases, avoiding products that are over-packaged or wrapped in non-recyclable materials. He regularly shops second-hand and donates used goods to thrift stores.

A product of Archbishop Mitty High School, Jeff has now worked in the field of waste recovery for over a decade. Through this work, he has gained extensive experience with the kind of public-private partnerships that are proving to be the backbone of our economic recovery.

In addition to his professional career and duties on the City Council, Jeff has previously served on a number of boards, commissions, and committees, including:

• City of Campbell Planning Commission
• Santa Clara County Water District Flood Control Advisory Committee
• Valley Transportation Authority Policy Advisory Committee
• Recycling and Waste Reduction Technical Advisory Committee for Santa Clara County
• Reach Youth Scholarship Foundation Board
• Happy Hollow Foundation Board
• Clara-Mateo Garbage Collectors Association (President)
• SJ/SV Chamber of Commerce, Today's Young Professionals Leadership Council