CHILDHOOD CHAOS - My father left us when I was six years old.  My two younger brothers and I never saw him again.  We were moved around as youngsters living together and apart in homes around Sacramento, Galt, and Lodi. As a young boy I attended a tiny rural school in the southern part of Sacramento County, not far from Rancho Seco.  After my father left, we moved to a house in the declining Parkway area of Sacramento.  Along with family trauma I became a ranch kid suddenly attending a big urban school. I was a latchkey kid watching my littlest brother as my mom worked days and evenings.

As I was finishing elementary school in Sacramento, my grandmother was struck with Alzheimer’s-related dementia.  At eleven years-old I moved out to my grandparents’ small ranch south of Elk Grove to work and help with my grandmother.  She died in the house within the year and I stayed on the ranch for the next six years with my grandfather. My younger brothers stayed in Sacramento with one living with my mother in South Sac and the other living with my aunt in a trailer park on Florin Road. I graduated from Galt High School in 1983.

Although we struggled as kids to understand what was happening around us, we were held together by family. We didn't slip into county protection or worse because we had grandparents, relatives, and family friends that took us in when things were toughest.

CAREER - I started working right out of high school.  My grandfather had a limited education and we never discussed going to college.  I didn’t have a path to a degree, but I always knew how to work and my grandfather set the example for responsibility and hard work.  I got my first regular job as a busboy making minimum wage and hustling tips.  I then found a printing company in Sacramento that hired occasionally and I called the plant manager each week for a  couple of months.  At the end of the summer, he offered me a job as the janitor.  25 years later, I’m still in the printing business and it has been a successful relationship. 

I moved from janitor to forklift driver and eventually into a front office position as a customer service trainee, but I made less money wearing a tie in customer service than working hourly in a warehouse. I began taking night courses at Cosumnes River and Sac City College, but the route to a degree was piecemeal and the plan didn’t fit easily with raising a family.  Quitting work to attend school full time was never an option with the family obligations I'd acquired by the time I was 20.

After ten years in printing and modest career progress, the company I had started at struggled and teetered. I had the opportunity to move to large local competitor and I took the chance on a new company. About a year into my time at this successful company, I pushed for a position as department manager.  This was the beginning of my management path and my career really started to pick up.  I continued to work long hours, take assorted night classes, and balance the shared custody of my daughter.  I worked for five years as a middle manager until I took an offer to join a smaller printing company down the road.  A former boss and friend had left and soon we were working together. 

In the environment of a smaller company I had wide responsibilities to complement my project management and customer service background.  In a few years I had moved from customer service manager to production manager and eventually to plant manager.  In 2004, our president left.  I was second in charge and had been considering leaving to start my own business.  The company was owned by a big corporation based in Texas and a corporate vice president soon came to town to review candidates for president.  I was an experienced manager and prepared to run the company. I took the job when it was offered.  The executive responsibility was a welcome and hectic challenge. I had responsibility for the company's bottom line profitability and everything else involved in running a small company.  It was stressful and challenging but I loved the job. We had assembled a strong team and built an exceptional operation. We made heady profits for our parent corporation in Houston.

After a few years, the corporation offered me the job of president at a larger local company near downtown Sacramento.  The irresistible irony was that this was the same plant where I’d begun as a janitor more than twenty years before.  I took the mantle and stepped into a big challenge.  The profitability, culture, existing structure, and corporate backing presented obstacles, but I learned more skills to manage in a difficult environment.  I thought I could turn the ship quickly, but it was a slow undertaking.  The company rewarded me personally, but we never made the progress I had wanted.

Within a couple of years I had an opportunity to become a partner at another local printing company.  I mortgaged equity in our house, assembled our savings, and before long was an owner with a good business partner.  This has been an invigorating and eye-opening move.  The company is doing well and growing in a challenging industry in a troubled economy.  My business partner and I are increasing our ownership share of the company and will eventually buy out our founding partner.  The professional chapter is far from finished, but the plans are progressing steadily. Best of all, the career successes in recent years have allowed me the flexibility and resources to devote more energy into my community, even as I work to grow our business.

FAMILY - When I moved to Sacramento as a teenager, I fell for a marvelous woman who had a young son.  Before long, I was married and a stepfather at 20 years old.  Within a few years we had a daughter, Grace, and I was building a structured family life far different from the childhood I'd known. We scraped together the money to buy a home in the Valley Hi area, and were on the cusp of the previous housing crash in the Sacramento area. Our home was like many in the region that had an upside down mortgage to value ratio. Low salaries and the economies of a young family added to our household stress.

My marriage unraveled by the time I was 28.  I found myself a divorced dad, not making much money as a customer service rep.  After divorce, I continued to live in South Sacramento and work in customer service. We raised my daughter with a 50/50 arrangement. Grace became a master of organization. She stayed with me every other weekday and alternated weekends with her mom. I eventually moved closer to downtown and my ex-wife has lived a few blocks apart for the last ten years. We've worked hard to raise a successful daughter from two households. (My ex-wife is among my supporters.)

As the years moved on, I met the sensational woman, Sean, with whom I've been with for fifteen years.  We dated for a long time before deciding to get married and start a family together.  In 2000 we went to Europe to tour France and Spain, run with the bulls in Pamplona, see Picasso's work in Madrid, and exchange our wedding vows in Paris.  Two years later our little boy Atticus was born and family life became even better. Sean has been a great mother to Grace and Atticus and we have a fantastic family. She works for the state as a legal analyst and we have a supportive and wonderful partnership.  

COMMUNITY - We live near Broadway and Franklin Blvd here in the city. My daughter, Grace, is now twenty-one and on a pre-law track at UC Santa Cruz.  After graduation, she plans to return to Sacramento next year and attend McGeorge Law School in 2010. My little boy is getting bigger and finished first grade in public school.  I’ve worked hard to be more engaged in my community and have put a great deal of time into volunteer, civic, and charity efforts. As a business owner and company president, I've been afforded the flexibility to do more in my city.

From an unpredictable beginning, my life has taken a winding path so far. I am embracing the opportunity to do more in my city and that is one of the driving factors behind this campaign to the city council.

Kasey Cotulla