Jean Walsh lives in North Oakland and enjoys getting around on foot, bike, scooter, and public transit. She serves as the President of the Longfellow Community Association and holds a master's degree in Urban Planning from MIT.
Jean has made public service a central part of her life. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, empowering micro-entrepreneurs to start businesses and raising funds to rebuild homes for those displaced by an earthquake. In graduate school she co-founded Students for Labor Justice and later built broad coalitions with Fair Trade USA to promote sustainable products, policies and practices. Jean's Spanish fluency helps her engage with diverse groups of people.
For ten years Jean led communications and public outreach for the City of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, promoting environmental initiatives and critical infrastructure programs. She takes pride in the award-winning Adopt a Drain program she created, which engages thousands of residents to get active in their communities.
Recently, Jean directed community outreach for Ford GoBike/BayWheels and Lime, expanding bike and scooter sharing in the Bay Area and providing 500+ low income residents vital access to sustainable transportation options through a discounted pricing program. Building partnerships, listening to community concerns, and finding creative solutions is what made Jean successful.
Jean has been on all sides of the table: advocacy, public sector, private sector. She knows how to get work done in large bureaucracies as well as tech startups and scrappy non-profits. Today, Jean is active with the Transbay Coalition, a grassroots advocacy group working to improve Bay Area public transportation. She recently completed the Emerge California Bootcamp, a training program for women who wish to run for political office.
Jean is proudly endorsed by the California Democratic Party, the Sierra Club, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, East Bay Young Democrats, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Emeryville Mayor Christian Patz, Oakland Councilmember Dan Kalb, AFSCME Local 3916, the Berkeley Democratic Club, Alameda County Assessor Phong La and many other community leaders.
