21 Facts About Ron Gonzales

Ronald R Gonzales was born on 1951 and is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party, who served as the 63rd Mayor of San Jose, California.

Ron Gonzales grew up in the Santa Clara Valley, and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

At age 18, Ron Gonzales won a seat on the student council at De Anza College.

Ron Gonzales became active in municipal politics in the late 1970s, heading a citizens' commission in Sunnyvale that recommended maintaining low density zoning in Sunnyvale neighborhoods.

Ron Gonzales first ran for Sunnyvale City Council in 1977 and lost by 300 votes.

In 1988, Ron Gonzales ran for county supervisor and received 49.7 percent of the votes in the June primary.

Ron Gonzales then served for eight years on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

Ron Gonzales designed a program to attract young teachers to the city's schools, including home purchase assistance programs.

Ron Gonzales advocated using San Jose Redevelopment Agency funds in areas outside downtown, including the King and Story neighborhood.

Ron Gonzales pushed for BART to extend to Downtown San Jose, in the Silicon Valley BART extension.

Ron Gonzales is listed among the nation's "Most influential Hispanics".

Ron Gonzales came under frequent political attacks during the transitional years as San Jose politics moved left.

In 2002, Ron Gonzales created the Silicon Valley Leadership PAC and started collecting donations for this fund.

Ron Gonzales is the founder of the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley.

Ron Gonzales was reelected as mayor in the March 2002 election.

On January 28,2004, while delivering the State of the City address, Ron Gonzales suffered a stroke.

Ron Gonzales stayed out of the race to succeed him and did not endorse or campaign for either candidate running in the November 2006 run-off election.

Ron Gonzales worked as Program Manager for ten years at Hewlett-Packard where he led a national initiative to create partnerships with local school districts and universities.

Ron Gonzales received the Community Impact Award in June 1999 from the Asian Law Alliance, as well as the Point of Light Award, a national honor given to individuals who have made significant contributions to their community.

Ron Gonzales founded of The Role Model Program, an effort that recruits adult role models to visit local middle schools [1].

Ron Gonzales chairs the National League of Cities Youth, Education, and Families Council overseeing the League's policies related to the betterment of youth and families across the country [2], and was a founding board member of Downtown College Prep, Santa Clara County's first charter high school, which focuses on the academic success of high school students from the San Jose central city area.