First elected in 2001, his fellow school board members in San Mateo County have subsequently elected him five times to countywide office. He has served as treasurer, vice president, and president of the San Mateo County School Boards Association and for 2005-06 holds the office of Immediate Past President.  He was also elected in 2003 to the Delegate Assembly of the California School Boards Association, which makes policy for that organization.  He serves as a member of its Government Relations Council and its High School Reform Task Force.

He has been a leader in the effort to open a charter high school focused on math and science. He also serves as part-time executive director for the nonprofit California Parents for Educational Choice. His articles on education reform as well as public policy and business have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, San Mateo County Times, Oakland Tribune, and San Jose Mercury News, among others.

During the last five years he has been Gibson & Associates’ lead evaluator for the largest economic development and housing programs as well as several education projects in Oakland funded through the Community Development Block Grant.  In addition to contributing to the overall evaluation, he led targeted analyses of Oakland’s public benefit lending programs operated through its One Stop Capital Shop and was a principal author of G&A’s study “Housing Renters at Risk in Oakland.”  The City has relied on the findings and recommendations in these reports to improve program operations through new initiatives and major restructuring.  He has also developed performance measures for Oakland’s Workforce Investment Board. As the company begins to develop charter schools, he serves on its design team.

He also earlier worked on the campaign to support Oakland’s Measure A school bond. For over five years he was a director at the Institute for the Future, a leading strategic planning consulting group and is still affiliated with them. While creating and leading the Institute’s multiyear study, The Future of Global Mail, he forecast changes in the distribution and marketing chains and the emergence of a more sophisticated consumer in North America and Europe. He co-authored four significant reports that led to major strategic changes in several of the world’s leading postal authorities and was a featured speaker at the Universal Postal Union’s World Congress in Beijing, China in 1999.

While at the Institute, Peter also led a comprehensive analysis of critical drivers and key trends in the electric power industry’s ten most important customer groups, including education. Previously, he was a primary director and author of “The Future of America’s Research-Intensive Industries,” which became a centerpiece for a White House conference on the role of government in research.

Peter organized the California Health Care Institute, established to foster continued rapid economic growth of the high technology medical industry.  Peter was also Vice President for The Economist of London’s Business International, the leading provider of business and economic analysis to major corporations, governments, and universities. He has held senior level positions with Syntex and Hewlett-Packard, and served as a U.S. Embassy commercial attaché in Beijing, China as well as on a committee staff in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He received an MA in international affairs from The George Washington University and a BA in political science from the University of Oregon. He has served on the Advisory Boards of the Commonwealth Club of California and WildAid, an international organization to stop illegal poaching.  He was a founding board member of the World Forum of Silicon Valley.

Vote for Peter H. Hanley on November 8