Matt Mahan

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to our conversation.

You know, I think it really goes back to being a kid.

I grew up in Watsonville, which is a little farming town, and we had a lot of challenges in our town.

We had high unemployment, a lot of crime.

When it was time for high school, our local high school had a higher dropout rate than graduation rate.

And my mom, who was a teacher, really cared deeply about my sisters and me getting a good education, encouraged me to look farther afield.

And I applied to this all-boys Catholic prep school in San Jose.

and got a work study scholarship.

So I worked on the grounds crew and they forgave my tuition.

And so I made this long journey by bus over to San Jose.

So I had a lot of time every day to read the newspaper, think about the world.

And I got really interested in politics and public policy and trying to figure out why was Silicon Valley so prosperous and my hometown struggling so much.

And so it was always, always an interest.

I ended up in my career sort of having other careers before I got into politics.

I was a public school teacher.

I worked in the tech sector for a long time.

But about seven years ago, our city council seat in San Jose opened up, and it was just kind of serendipitous.

Our company had been acquihired.

I was sort of in this transitional moment, and I decided to throw my hat in the ring.