Candidate for
Director; Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Ward 5

Michael Picker is the Senior Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown on Renewable Energy Facilities. He coordinates the statewide effort to help reduce California's reliance on polluting coal and fossil fuels and bring us closer to our goal of providing at least 33% of electricity from renewable generation sources. Michael first took this appointed position in the Schwarzenegger administration in 2008 as a senior-level advisor focused on strategic planning efforts and coordinating interagency teams of local, state and federal officials to secure permitting and approval for large-scale solar, wind, and geothermal power plants and other important infrastructure projects.

During the last four years Michael has been involved in the authorization of 150 clean energy projects, totaling nearly $25 billion in in-state investment and 16,000 megawatts of electricity and creating almost 25,000 highly skilled construction jobs. In addition, he oversees the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, a 24 million-acre master plan for renewable energy projects in the California desert. He also developed a strategy for Gov. Brown's energy program to develop 12,000 megawatts of rooftop and urban renewable power throughout California.

Before serving as the governor's renewable energy advisor, Michael was a founding partner of Lincoln Crow Strategic Communications where he worked with businesses, government agencies, labor unions, and not-forprofit organizations on issues of social, economic, and environmental sustainability for more than eight years. Prior to that Michael worked with State Treasurer Phil Angelides as the Deputy Treasurer for Investment after helping to coordinate his successful election campaign.

Michael served as Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna's chief of staff from 1991 to 1998, working to revitalize Sacramento's downtown businesses and neighborhoods as well as to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety throughout the city center. Michael's responsibilities in the mayor's office included revamping Downtown as the Sacramento region's main street for culture, shopping and business; finalizing the traffic calming program in Midtown; working with developers to build infill housing in the historic City; developing strategies for rebuilding the Union Pacific rail yards; creating the City's Neighborhood Department; and breaking a decadesold impasse on flood protection for the city.

In 1982, Michael co-founded the Toxics Assessment Group, an environmental consulting business, where he helped organize a statewide nonprofit coalition of environmental, farm, labor, and neighborhood groups that framed local and statewide policy on toxic hazards in California. From 1980 to 1982, he worked as a Deputy Assistant for Toxic Substances Control in Gov. Brown's first administration, where his role was to help establish programs to safely site hazardous waste facilities and develop waste management programs, which are still in effect at the Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Michael earned a Master of Arts in Business Administration from the University of California, Davis, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. He is a 37-year resident of Sacramento and has resided in SMUD District 5 in Midtown for 30 of those years. He is married to Bettina Redway, an attorney, and he is the legal guardian of his nephew Kenneth Picker. He is an avid white water kayak enthusiast and recently completed his second three-year term on the board of directors of the Pesticide Action Network, North America.

This is Michael's first run for an elected public office.