My Day Job and Why it Matters

By Russ Cohen

My job is to make sure that all 1000 businesses within the commercial district are happy. It's a tall order but I get the job done with a healthy dose of common sense and creativity.

Palo Alto has a successful downtown by any definition. While I cannot take complete credit for that, I can take some of it. Through new programs, technology and public/ private partnerships, the district now enjoys amenities it didn't have just few years ago. These include free wi-fi in some downtown open spaces, romantic twinkle lights in the trees and American flags on national holidays along University Avenue along with cleaner, safer, more attractive streets.

Before taking the Executive Director position I spent the better part of twenty years as the Creative Director for a variety of advertising agencies and in-house creative departments including BBDO, FCB, Hyperion Solutions, Intuit and Polycom, to name a few. Creating award-winning ad campaigns for clients like Apple, HP, Visa, Glendale Federal Bank and many more illustrates that developing a strategy and then executing a plan to achieve specific objectives is a skill that can be directly transferred into public service.

I'm known for my ability to think "outside the box". Add to this the practical, common-sense approach of running a successful downtown district, and you have a versatile, well-rounded candidate who is prepared to bring creative and cost-effective solutions to the challenges that will be faced by this city.