At Mayor Gonzales’ State of the City Address last week, I sat as
a guest of the City of San Jose in the third row of the spectacular
California Theatre (refurbished by HP at a cost of $75
million).
At Mayor Gonzales’ State of the City Address last week, I sat as a guest of the City of San Jose in the third row of the spectacular California Theatre (refurbished by HP at a cost of $75 million). To the right of me sat Superior Court Judge Ron Del Pozzo and to the left a newsmaker from Gilroy who was being honored with a Pride of San Jose Award that evening. This man (I’ll call him Steve) modestly describes his job as “tinkering with computers” for the City of San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley.
But don’t let this busy member of the Gilroy community fool you. He was recently recognized by Mayor Gonzales at a San Jose City Council meeting for his role in the Capital Improvement Project Team’s APWA Project Management Innovation Award. This American Public Works Association Award is not just a local award – it is a National Award given to recognize outstanding achievement in the public works profession.
The City’s Division Manager of the Information Technology Department praised Steve for developing “a database that provides extremely important information to Public Works and other departments around the City. He has been a leading-edge developer at the City by integrating various technologies. He has shown creativity and perseverance, continuing to achieve results even with reduced staffing.” This project will save the City of San Jose (and our county) $200,000 annually.
The project he and his team have created enables project managers to view capital projects throughout the city at a glance by using software that integrates all the information for the different projects into a PDA (personal digital assistant). At any moment, a manager can be walking around with this little handheld computer device and look up how a new project is coming along or see how much money is needed to finish a particular building.
Other cities have consulted Steve in regard to San Jose’s public works database. Both the City of Oakland and the City of Santa Clara have expressed interest in this new system.
Not bad for the son of an American citizen who spent W.W. II interned for having a Japanese ethnic heritage. His mother’s family suffered horribly in the camps, and an aunt starved to death as a child. His father became a decorated sharpshooter fighting for the American Army at 18.
Steve’s grandfather had immigrated to the Salinas Valley in 1909 to work as one of the first lettuce farmers and had raised his family in Salinas until the war interrupted. His father attended the same high school as my father did, Salinas High School.
When the war was over, they returned. “It was the best day of my life,” Steve’s grandfather declared the day they were able to return home to Salinas.
In his spare time these days, Steve is president of the trustees at his local church where he oversees repairs on the building, chairs the board meetings and does sound engineering each Sunday. He is also mentoring young people there by training them in running the sound board.
I know so much about Steve because I took a personal interest in him when I met him 26 years ago in a philosophy class at North Salinas High School. Steve Teraji has been my husband for 14 years now.
