Christopher Cabaldon

I'm the mayor of what was the forgotten old-industrial small town on the other side of the tracks (in this case, the tracks are the Sacramento River) and is now the entrepreneurial city at the forefront an emerging American metro. Last year, we were named one of the world's "Smart Cities to Watch", building off an earlier recognition by the US Conference of Mayors as America's most livable small city.

Also, I just might be the nation's leading heretic on the topic of civic engagement. See my 2017 SXSW talk: Swiping Left on Civic Engagement. Less radically, I've done SXSW sessions on topics like the Value of Live Music, How Americans Are Experiencing the Economy, and College & Career Readiness. I've been a judge each year for the Civic Tech pitch competition.

At the US Conference of Mayors, I chair the Jobs, Education & the Workforce Committee (as well as the national LGBTQ Mayors Alliance). We're deep into the future of work, college and career pathways, America's College Promise, early learning, digital badging, and rebooting workforce development to meet the disruptive impact of trade, automation, technology & AI. For the past two years, I've served as one of the five US delegates to the Global Parliament of Mayors.

In my bespectacled secret identity, I'm the Hazel Cramer Endowed Chair and Professor of Public Policy & Administration at Sacramento State University. Among my courses: the nation's first covering policy prototyping for design sprints.