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Sam (Sammuel) Washington
Biography
Other Government Jobs
Contact Info
Campaign Office Phone: (510) 685-0535
Campaign Office Address: 505 14th St. Suite 900, Oakland, CA 94612
Campaign Email: [email protected]
Please send questions or information requests through the website as well: http://www.samforoaklandmayor.com
External Links
Key Issues
Event Notes
In the News
References
The following information was added by the candidate's campaign.
Get to know Sam better
Sam Washington is an executive consultant for Technology & Business Strategy, Solutions Delivery, and Professional Services. He is currently serving as a Global IT Enterprise Security Management Consultant for Kaiser Permanente.
Formerly Vice President of Management Consulting and Professional Services for ITSource Technology, Sam continues a very diverse 30 year career as a solutions specialist in human services, business operations, technology and security. While not a city native, Oakland has been Sam’s home longer than any other community since he first came to California in 1984. Sam and Shereel Washington now reside in Ivy Hill, just blocks below the 580 freeway in East Oakland.
Sam’s public service experience includes being appointed to The City of Richmond Human Relations Commission, serving from 2005 to 2007. He is also serving in his 9th year as volunteer Law Enforcement Support and Chaplain for the Contra Costa County Sheriff. He continues to serve as an ad-hoc family and support counselor, life-coach, and career adviser locally and nationally.
Sam’s diverse record of professional experience and human relationship skills are representative of the wide diversity of leadership, service delivery, and strategic planning practice that he offers the people of Oakland as Mayor.“I'm a 'win-win' problem solver, personally and professionally. The situations are sometimes less than desirable, the environments are sometimes toxic, the resources are sometimes very limited, and failure is the expected outcome. But unqualified success is most often the result. I plan to bring that same focused ‘win win’ success practice to Oakland city government as Mayor.”
The Washington Mayoral Platform
1. Public Service-Oriented Police Presence Is Priority One For Oakland! We will not simply throw more peace officers at the crime, security, and safety issues in Oakland. Currently in my 9th year as volunteer law enforcement support with the Contra Costa County Sheriff, I bring active experience and knowledge of community policing and public service. I will work with the Chief Of Police, the senior staff of The OPD, the Oakland Police Officers Association, and the Community Policing Advisory Board, so that together we enhance and improve police officer relations and accountability in all of Oakland. We will drive positive public presence and active public relations practices, rather than power projection and aggressive crime management.
2. "Oakland First" Is My Jobs Creation Platform As Mayor of Oakland! The Mayor's office will promote, highlight, and spotlight small and large businesses and non-profits that establish hiring and employment goals for Oakland residents as top priority. I will work with the City Council in driving The Oakland First Mandate - offering contract and support opportunities from the city to vendors, contractors, and service providers who are based in Oakland AND who enforce metrics-based hiring practices within the City of Oakland. The City will lead by example with enforcement of the "Oakland First" hiring across all city organizations, offices, and services.
3. I Will Showcase Oakland As The East Bay Technology & Business Hub! I will expand the city's relationships with regional and national government, business, and non-profit entities as well as local organizations to market and celebrate Oakland as the cost-effective, high value business investment, business start-up, and technology enterprise development center of Northern California. I will directly work with minority and small business groups and chambers of commerce organizations to develop and implement strategies for growing and sustaining our diverse Oakland economy. I will aggressively streamline and improve programs to support and drive the growth of Oakland's existing business community - so often ignored and maligned by the current alleged city leaders.
4. Transparent And Accountable Leadership As Mayor! From The Mayor's office I will lead by example in building and enhancing Oakland's role and presence relative to regional issues, challenges, and goals. I will work more closely with the Port Of Oakland, the Oakland Unified School District, the sports teams owners, large corporate employers, and our northern California unions. We will team as invested partners supporting programs which foster mutual growth and success. I will make the city's budget truly open for public review and analysis. I will also use my own professional success practices in business and technology enterprise management to drive utilization of best practices, current technology solutions, and the latest operational sustainability tools to constantly improve and enhance city-wide operations, programs and services.
More About Sam
Sammuel Joseph Butler Washington was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and was raised primarily in the lower Midwest states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Sam’s childhood in a traveling ministerial family consisted of times of relative economic and social stability mixed with periods, sometimes months, of extreme poverty for Sam, his parents, and 6 brothers and sisters. In having a life of economic uncertainty, Sam learned to share and work with people of all races, creeds, backgrounds, experiences, religions, and social perspectives. Because of those diverse and complicated experiences, Sam learned to develop relationship building skills with all cross-sections of humanity at an early age.
Being among the first generation of students to complete a prototype federal magnet school college prep program, Sam studied Aerospace Engineering at University of Kansas. In traveling to Los Angeles to visit family in 1984, Sam decided to continue his studies and career pursuits in California. While working, he took classes at Cal State Northridge, Sacramento City College, and American River College. He eventually graduated from U.C. Davis in Political Science and earned a Master’s Degree in Theology from Mt. Zion/Sacramento Theological Seminary and Bible Institute.
While it is no surprise that Sam and his family fully experienced the generational racism, bigotry, economic and social segregation that existed in the early days of integration in the Southern and the Midwest U.S., it would come as quite a surprise for some to learn that he found his most extreme personal experiences with racism and segregation to be in California, where racism and bigotry are often masked as ‘social programs’ and ‘economic empowerment’ initiatives that permanently label and trap poor people and people of color into lives of generational poverty, political disenfranchisement, and economic slavery.
Sam's early professional experience consisted of employment and volunteer service in a wide range of community programs. His roles included serving as a recreational counselor for Sacramento County inner-city elementary school programs, directing the 1990 Census program for the minority community of Del Paso Heights, serving as a counselor and staff trainer in group homes, as an administrator and director in youth and adult residential psychiatric care programs, driving buses and vehicles for homeless shelters and feeding programs, conducting parent training services, and providing legal assistance and social services counseling for youth, adults, and families across Northern California - from Sacramento to Bakersfield and from Stockton to the San Francisco Bay. In also serving as a Crisis Unit Mental Health Clinician for Sacramento County, Sam spent long hours directly sharing and working with people at the bottom of their lives, helping to revive dying hopes and restore failing dreams.
In 1995 Sam transitioned from a career addressing life issues and developing solutions in the social services profession to developing technology and business solutions, beginning as a computer hardware engineering & research tech at IBM. He has since built a near 20-year success record in the technology industry as a manager, business analyst, and strategist.
Sam's Wife Shereel is a leader and a recognized choreographer in the San Francisco Bay's performing arts and culture community. Shereel Washington is a performing arts consultant, dance instructor, and student of various dance genres. Shereel is co-Founder and Director of IXALT and she co-founded and was co-director of The Black Choreographers' Festival. Shereel is also an award-winning pioneer choreographer in Praise Dance with professional performance and teaching experience that also includes Congolese, Senegalese, Haitian, Caribbean, Modern, Pedestrian, and Ballet. A graduate of San Francisco State University's Fine Arts Program, Shereel has received public acclaim for works and performances from San Francisco to New York, and she is an active member of the Hawaiian culture and performing arts organization, Halau Hula O'Kupakalau'ie'ie in Richmond, California.
To this present day, Sam maintains a strong practice of solving complex business, technical and operational challenges. He is a trusted adviser, leader, and consultant in driving successful business process and technology solutions delivery for all levels of government agencies and commercial clients. Sam Washington offers the City and the People of Oakland multi-faceted professional leadership experience which encompasses social services, community support programs, and human services agencies, as well as large business, technical, and government operations.
Comments:
04.30.14: Sam had a great introduction and sharing time with the other candidates at Laney College tonight! He is looking forward to engaging with all of them to discuss their diverse and detailed visions for the future Oakland. The people of Oakland get to choose!
05.07.14: Sam met with the families the Redwood Heights In a Candidates' Forum. It was a great evening meeting with the Neighborhood Association, community leaders, and the other candidates. They discussed Emergency Services, The City Budget, The City's Involvement In Youth/Young Adult Education, and Workforce Investment for the people of Oakland.
05.08.14: Sam shared with the founders, the staff, the clients, and supporters of OASIS, the community drug and mental health support services program, primarily serving Downtown and West Oakland areas. Mayor Quan was given 15 minutes to make her stump speech. Her political piers were all given approximately 8-10 minutes each, and they discussed a wide range of issues. In his allotted time of 3 minutes, Sam made clear that his direct experience in the healthcare field, as a counselor, as human services coordinator, as a volunteer in local homeless and counseling programs, and as Law Enforcement Support and Chaplain for Contra Costa County Sheriff, makes him uniquely qualified to share with the audience on the what matters to them. No general platitudes and long-winded promises based on pre-planned unrelated talking points. The facts and the plan for the people of Oakland, that were also relevant to the OASIS audience, were presented in 3 minutes. Thanks Sam!
05/21/14:
Sam shared in the Mayoral Candidates Debate Forum sponsored by The 100 Black Men Of the Bay Area, The Oakland Post, Black Women Organized for Political Action and Oakland Black Churches. It wasn't much of a debate forum, thanks to the sub-par moderation - but it was exciting! Once again, there was only one candidate on the floor with real, verifiable and successful leadership in solving problems, in creating a vision, building on it, driving success, and simultaneously solving critical problems on a large scale. Every other candidate on stage, including the current Mayor, was just asking the audience for the opportunity to train into the job - at the people of Oakland's expense. Sam has a better plan - elect a proven leader as Mayor!
