Richard Katz

College Friend

“Whether you’re going to be a cosmetologist or a cosmologist, people at SMC know that what they’re doing has equal merit.”

Country western fan and politician Richard Katz is planning on a busy future. “I’ll be running for re-election this year (as State Assemblymember) and then I plan to run for Mayor of Los Angeles next year,” he says. And he’s also a great advocate of community colleges and of SMC in particular. “Community colleges give a lot of people a second shot,” he says. “People like me who didn’t study as hard as we should have or those who are going back to education or can’t afford to jump to a four-year school.”

Richard graduated from SMC in 1970 and went on to law school where “after a year, law school and I decided we didn’t like each other.” He then utilized the printing and graphic arts skills he’d learned at SMC to start a printing business. “It was a great alternative to not eating,” he recalls. “And about 60% of my clients were political so I got to help a lot of candidates that I felt good about.” He was elected himself in 1980 and has ever since been an effective “booster” for education.

“Community colleges are a very democratic resource in this society,” he says. “They’re a great equalizer. Not everyone needs to or should go to a four-year school. And SMC has played a really unique role in recognizing that vocational and liberal arts are of equal value. And as the economy gets rougher,” he continues, “people are going to be really dependent on community colleges to learn the skills they need in the work force.”

Richard remembers one professor at SMC who always took the credit whenever he accomplished something valuable in politics. “Of course, whenever I goofed up,” says Richard, “he’d say it must have been the fault of somebody’s else’s class I took.”

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