CHRISTOPHER CABALDON, PRINCIPAL
Christopher Cabaldon works on transformative policy strategies at the local, regional, and statewide scales, with expertise across a wide range of topical areas in policy, governance, politics, economics, administration, and finance.
His professional career in education policy in California spans more than two decades. After coordinating legislative higher education policy development and analysis as Chief Consultant to the Assembly Higher Education Committee and then Chief of Staff to the Assembly Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Mr. Cabaldon served five years as Vice Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, with executive responsibility for policy, strategic initiatives, planning, technology, data systems, governmental advocacy and intersegmental relations, and public affairs. He then transformed a small organization into one of the state’s most influential policy advocates for K-12 reform as President and Chief Executive Officer of EdVoice.
Mr. Cabaldon is currently the executive director of the Linked Learning Alliance, program officer for the California Education Policy Fund, and co-director of the California Legislative Staff Education Institute.
The Governor appointed Mr. Cabaldon to represent California on the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, where he is the vice chair of Issues Analysis & Research. He has also served on the board for the Foundation for the California Community Colleges, and as a member of the systemwide Student Success Task Force convened by the California Community Colleges pursuant to Senate Bill 1143. He was director of the Blueprint for Community College Student Success project for the New America Foundation.
Mr. Cabaldon has taught courses in public policy and public finance at CSU Sacramento, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the School of Education at UC Davis. He is frequently called upon to help shape state education policy, serving as a gubernatorial and legislative appointee on a variety of blue ribbon panels. He also served on the campaign steering committee for the two most recent statewide education facilities bond propositions. He is a member of the advisory board for the Campaign for College Opportunity.
Since 1998, Mr. Cabaldon has been Mayor of West Sacramento, where his local and regional leadership on school facilities, effective governance, universal preschool, research-based reform, and workforce/education alignment have resulted in both scholarly recognition and improved student outcomes. One of the nation’s leading mayors on education policy and best practices, he is Vice Chair for Education at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
His work on transportation, land use, air quality and climate change, housing, and economic development at the local, regional, and statewide scales has won numerous awards, and has become the model for effective regional collaborative action. He chaired the metropolitan planning organization and the region’s Partnership for Prosperity project, and serves on a variety of transportation and air quality agency boards. He was as a member of the Speaker’s Commission on Regionalism, state president for the National Brownfields Association, and then a director for the California Center for Regional Leadership. He has worked on state water and habitat issues for more than a decade on the state’s Delta Protection Commission, as well as the Regional Water Quality Control Board and as a key player shaping the state’s recent water and Delta package. He also served on the board of directors for the Great Valley Center.
Mr. Cabaldon served as a director for the League of California Cities, and was the founding co-chair of both the Asian Pacific and Gay/Lesbian caucuses. He served as president of Asian and Pacific Americans in Higher Education, founding chair of the Asian Pacific Youth Leadership Project, and president of the Asian Pacific Legislative Staff Caucus.
Mr. Cabaldon earned his B.S. in environmental economics from UC Berkeley, where he now serves on the alumni association board, and then a Master of Public Policy & Administration degree from CSU Sacramento, where he received the Distinguished Alumni Award. He is a frequent panelist as a scholar-practitioner at international symposia on the intersection of cognitive psychology, neuroeconomics, and public policy.
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