Dave Pine

Dave Pine is President of the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees and is currently a candidate for the District 1 seat of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, which will be filled by an all-mail special election ending May 3, 2011. He made an unsuccessful bid to represent California's 19th State Assembly District in 2002, but was defeated by former South San Francisco Mayor Gene Mullin in the Democratic primary, who went on to win the election and was re-elected in 2006. Before entering politics, Pine served as Vice President, General Council & Secretary for three Silicon Valley tech companies: Radius, Inc, Excite@Home, and Handspring, Inc.

Early Life

Dave Pine grew up in a small New Hampshire town, where his father worked as a professor and his mother a teacher. Later, both of his siblings also pursued careers in education; his brother became an assistant principal and his sister an admissions officer.

Education

While a freshman at Dartmouth College, Pine was a driver for Democratic candidate for Governor Hugh Gallen, who won the 1978 election to become only the second Democrat to serve as Governor of New Hampshire since 1925. Pine then ran for and won a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, and at age 19, was one of the youngest ever elected. After Dartmouth, Pine attended the University of Michigan Law School. He was a summer intern at Fenwick & West in Palo Alto (now located in Mountain View). After graduating in 1985, Pine accepted a position at the (then small) law firm, representing Silicon Valley high-tech start-up companies.

Silicon Valley High-Tech Career

Pine left Fenwick & West in 1990 to join a tiny tech start-up called Radius, Inc, which offered the first large screen available for a personal computer and pioneered the concept of allowing the dragging of windows between multiple screens, a feature first available on the Macintosh Plus. The company grew from 3 to 300 employees in just a few years, and steadily expanded its product line to include processor and graphics accelerator cards, video production software, and Macintosh computer clones.

In 1996 Pine joined the tech start-up @Home Network, which pioneered high-speed cable internet service and quickly grew to serve millions of subscribers. He managed the company's $6.7 billion acquisition of search engine and internet portal Excite in 1999, and the company became Excite@Home, now able to offer both high-speed internet access as well as internet services including search, email, and user homepages. The company was later out-marketed by the much larger cable television companies, however, and was forced to sell its cable internet service division to AT&T in 2001 and became simply Excite.com.

In 2000, Pine joined Handspring, a tech start-up founded by the original inventors of the Palm Pilot, who were unhappy with management by 3Com, which had acquired Palm Pilot in 1997. Handspring developed the Visor line of PDAs until 2001 and the Treo line of smartphones starting in 2002. The Treo smartphones were so successful that Handspring was re-acquired by Palm, Inc in 2003, now operating as a publicly traded company independent of 3Com.

Public Service

Redwood City

From the beginning of his Silicon Valley tech career, Pine was interested in public service. From 1993 to 1999, he served on the Redwood City Planning Commission, which reviewed a wide variety of development proposals, including those relating to Redwood Shores, the Pacific Shores Office Park, and the Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center. During this time, Pine also served on the Redwood City Historic Resource Advisory Committee.

2002 State Assembly Election

In 2002, Pine sought elected office for the first time since serving in the New Hampshire House of Representatives over 20 years before, running to represent California's 19th State Assembly District. Two of his opponents in the Democratic primary had much more extensive political connections. Gina Papan was a California State Deputy Attorney General and the daughter of then-19th Assembly District representative Lou Papan, who had been an Assembly member for 20 years but was being forced out in 2002 due to term limits. Gene Mullin had served on the South San Francisco Planning and Historical Preservation commissions, and was at the time Mayor of South San Francisco.

Pine called for campaign finance reforms including public campaign financing and for campaign donations under $1000 to be tax-deductable. His campaign was mostly self-financed and he said he would not accept special-interest mondey. Pine criticized Papan for accepting a $365,000 campaign contribution from her father Lou Papan, which included $17,500 from tobacco companies, $1,500 from accounting firm Arthur Andersen, and $750 from former energy giant Enron.

South San Francisco Mayor Gene Mullin ended up winning the Democratic nomination, and went on to win the election with 63% of the vote in the heavily-Democratic district.

Burlingame and San Mateo School Boards

After Handspring was re-acquired by Palm, Inc in 2003, Pine decided to leave the high-tech industry and devote himself full-time to public service. He successfully ran for a seat on the Burlingame School District Board of Trustees and served until 2006, when he was Board President. In 2007, Pine was elected to the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees, and is currently Board President. The district, which was then facing a financial crisis, hired new Superintendent Scott Laurence, previous coach, teacher, Dean of Students, and Principal at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, and Superintendent of Palo Alto Unified School District. The San Mateo Union High School District has since had its bond rating upgraded and has increased its financial reserves. In an effort to reduce its electricity bills, the Board of Trustees approved a $32 million project to install solar panels on the roofs of six district high schools on November 12, 2009.

2011 County Supervisor Election

Dave Pine is currently running in an all-mail special election for the District 1 seat on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, for which ballots must be postmarked by May 3, 2011. Before the election date had even been set, Pine and opponents Richard Holober, Terry Nagel, and Gina Papan had already declared their candidacy. Demetrios Nikas and Michael Stogner later entered the race.

Funding

According to campaign finance statements due from each of the candidates on March 24, 2001, Pine has raised the most from individual donors as well as the most total, $309,000. Terry Nagel had raised $142,600, Gina Papan had raised $109,000, and Richard Holober had raised $65,100. Demetrios Nikas and Michael Stogner had not done any fundraising for the campaign.

Endorsements

Pine received the sole endorsement of the influential Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, which has 18,000 members in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The most prominent politician who has endorsed Pine is former San Mateo County Supervisor and current 21st State Assembly District representative Rich Gordon.

External links

• Dave Pine for San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine's campaign website