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Pat Fong Kushida

Pat is a known as a visionary, entrepreneurial leader who has applied these skills to help build programs that strengthen California’s ethnically diverse business community and create economic development opportunities for this community to prosper. Through her leadership, The CalAsian Chamber is now the largest ethnic chamber in California and has established four federal centers that help diverse small businesses. The Sacramento Business Center, funded by the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency serving California, The Small Business Development Center serving San Joaquin County,  the Small Business Transportation Resource Center funded by the Department of Transportation serving California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada and Electrify California Center funded by the Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency helping small businesses enter California’s low-carbon economy.

Pat has established relationships that link the most prominent API business organization to opportunities that provide advocacy, education and outreach to a significant portion of this state’s demographics, the over 700,000 Asian Pacific owned businesses in California. Through her efforts, the Chamber has developed partnerships throughout the State with over 53 community-based organizations. She created a separate Foundation to house each chamber’s economic and workforce development, leadership, and education programs. Through this effort, the chamber won a significant contract with Covered California to sign up over 50,000 API business in California. Most recently, through the chamber’s public policy work, the organization successfully sponsored AB 2019 which codified the State’s 25% small business procurement goal.

Pat’s strength is forming collaborations with many community-based organizations on issues related to regional economic development to advance her community’s interests. She has advocated on behalf of the chamber at the local, state and federal levels, and developed successful ongoing fund development programs to ensure chamber viability. Most recently, she formed the Sacramento Inclusive Development Collaborative (Sac IEDC), which is a group of regional chambers and local P-Bids that advocate for the diverse and underserved small business community in the Sacramento Region.

Pat firmly believes in giving back to her community and serves on numerous boards and commissions.  Pat was a governor’s appointee to the California Student Aid Commission and a former board of trustee for Sacramento Unified School District.  Pat’s most recent recognition was by the Sacramento Business Journal as one of the region’s Most Admired CEOs.

Prior to her work in the non-profit arena, Pat worked in procurement management for major retail corporations for 15 years. Pat graduated from California State University, Sacramento in 1985 with a B.S. in Business Administration, concentration, Marketing, and a minor in Communications.

Back to leadership

Change Is Possible

The New California Coalition is the non-partisan political home and voice for over 6.5 million “Common Sense” voters across California

We want results, and we are mobilizing to achieve them. The New California Coalition is organizing everyday voters, business leaders, and community organizations from across the state into a movement to demand change and action.

We want a massive amount of housing built to make homes accessible to buyers, renters, and the unhoused alike, not more excuses, red tape, and NIMBYism.

We want safe streets and communities instead of finger pointing, victim blaming, or hiding inaction behind empty and dangerous slogans.

We want clean and healthy public spaces that we can pass down to the next generation rather than complaining about or denying the damage being done. We want to build financial security through good paying jobs rather than blocking the industries that can transform our society and balloon the middle class.

We can have all of this and more if we organize for it now.

We are Californians from all different backgrounds – from business to workers, from disenchanted political organizers to unaffiliated and disaffected voters. We are ready to solve the most pressing challenges facing our state, but our first step is to create a political voice for this army of Common Sense Californians.

Common-sense

California's biggest challenges

Housing

Since 1980, housing construction has stalled in California but our population has exploded. Home buying is out of reach and rents are going up every year. We must ramp up home building to meet the needs of residents and bring down the cost of living.

200,000 built
2.5 million homes

Homelessness

California accounts for 28% of the country’s entire homeless population and more than 50% of the unsheltered homeless individuals. The homeless population in the Bay Area has grown four times faster than the overall regional population since 2010.

200,000 built
2.5 million homes

Crime

The homicide rate rate for some of California’s largest cities – Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco – increased by about 17% in 2021; and none of these even approach the overall per capita crime rates of places like Stockton, San Bernardino, Compton, and Richmond. Californians across the state report feeling unsafe as one of their biggest concerns and reasons why the Golden State is becoming increasingly unlivable.

Drought

Every year we see fires spread larger and watering restrictions become more severe, but the response to address climate change and resource consumption remains single minded and half hearted: consume less gas and use less water. California cannot survive without better water management and climate mitigation. From desalination to clean energy sources like solar, wind, green hydrogen, biomass, or geothermal – there are common sense solutions that already exist if our leaders invested in building rather than political jockeying and finger pointing.

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News

Bear Essentials October 4th: This week on the news
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Bear Essentials September 27th: What a week
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Bear Essentials September 20th: Do you think the state is headed in the right direction?
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