Susan Golding has had a distinguished 20 year career in public service and now serves as a member of the Board of Directors of several private corporations: the Titan Corporation, the Surebeam Corporation, and Avanir Pharmaceuticals. She is a member of the Board of the Directors of lst Pacific Bank of California.

Ms. Golding is the CEO and President of the Golding Group, Inc., an international strategic consulting and crisis management firm. She recently accepted the task of directing the Office of Homeland Security for the Titan Corporation, where she coordinated the company's significant technologies that could be applied to fighting terrorism. This includes the technology being used today by the U.S. Postal Service to remove the threat of anthrax from the mail.

In the fall of 2001, she was appointed by the Dean at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to serve as a Senior Fellow of Public Policy.

She continues to serve as a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and is a member of the Board of the International Republican Institute in Washington, D.C., which teaches democratic processes and strategies by invitation in developing countries all over the world. She recently returned from Nigeria and South Africa where she taught leadership and economic development.

She is a member of the Board of the Eureka Foundation, based in Washington D.C., and a member of the Trusteeship of Los Angeles, the National Women's Forum, and of the National Woman's Campaign Fund.

Ms. Golding is a sought after speaker on a broad range of topics ranging from innovations in city government, emergency preparedness, and the meaning of leadership.

From December 1992 to December 2000, she served two terms as Mayor of the city of San Diego, the sixth largest city in the U.S. At the start of her second term as Mayor, she was overwhelmingly re-elected by 78 percent of the voters, setting a record for mayoral elections in California.

Before becoming Mayor, she was elected to two terms and chaired the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, was appointed by the Governor to serve as Deputy Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing for the State of California, and was an elected member of the San Diego City Council. Prior to public service, she was Associate Publisher and General Manager of the NewsPress, a California community newspaper, and taught at Emory University, in Atlanta.

While she was mayor, she fought to preserve San Diego's natural resources and the livability of its neighborhoods, and helped to lift the city out of one of worst recessions in its history. For these, and other accomplishments, Mayor Golding was named one of the nation's 25 "Most Dynamic Mayors" by Newsweek magazine and is described as one of a "new breed" of progressive mayors "resurrecting urban America" in a book published by The Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innovations.

Mayor Golding is known for her leadership in negotiating the agreement to build the city's first new central library in over thirty years, and to build the new downtown ballpark, which will be part of the most ambitious and successful downtown redevelopment effort in the country. In addition, her success in creating the largest urban habitat preserve in the country by reaching agreements among private landowners, environmental organizations and the federal, state, and local government was called a national model by the Secretary of the Interior. Further, her negotiating skills were used to settle an increasingly violent union strike that threatened to damage the welfare of business sector and union members.

After her first year in office, violent crime decreased for the first time in more than a decade, and overall crime dropped each year, for a total of a 52% decrease in crime during her administration. San Diego became one of the safest large cities in the U.S. Mayor Golding established San Diego's Public Safety Ordinance, requiring the funding of new police officers without increasing taxes. That addition of officers enabled San Diego to become the largest city in the country to fully reorganize its entire police department to a community policing structure in which officers work with neighborhood residents to prevent crime before it occurs. She also established one of the first youth curfew policies that helped to reduce juvenile crime.

Although California mayors do not have jurisdiction over the public schools, Mayor Golding launched a Safe Schools Initiative to create a better learning environment for San Diego children. In response to her efforts, the School Board voted to close school campuses in 1995, truancy was cut 14 percent its first year in effect, and today, elementary and middle schools in the city now operate from 6 am to 6 pm, ending the question of "latchkey children." "6 to 6" has been lauded in national magazines and by the Secretary of Education.

After two years of the Golding administration, California Business Magazine named San Diego the "best large California city in which to do business" - a dramatic change from 1992 when Fortune magazine ranked the city 57th in the U.S. Mayor Golding cut the business tax in half her first year in office, and cut it in half again the second year; it was 20 percent of what it was when she took office at the end of her term. She cut water and sewer fees - which were among the highest in the nation - for businesses and homeowners by more than half, and cut them by more than two-thirds for manufacturers. As a result, Forbes placed San Diego as the sixth best place in the nation to do business or advance one's career.

As Mayor, she encouraged international commerce to further diversify an economy hurt by federal defense cutbacks and to bring the global economy home. She established the San Diego World Trade Center and led numerous international trade missions to Asia and Europe. She opened the San Diego Business Development Office-Asia, in Hong Kong. San Diego more than replaced the jobs lost during the recession of the 90's and the City's economy grew at its fastest rate in history. The average per capita income rose to surpass the national average, and unemployment was the lowest recorded in the city's modern history at the end of her administration.

Mayor Golding's initiatives along and across the border with Mexico brought the two sides together for planning, economic development, the environment, and law enforcement. She led bi-national trade missions promoting the region as a whole, regardless of borders, and signed agreements of cooperation with three successive mayors of Tijuana. The first bi-national law enforcement conference began during her administration.

Mayor Golding fought to decentralize municipal government by creating city service centers throughout the city, and made the city operate more efficiently by cutting unnecessary spending and positions, and requiring zero-based budgeting, benchmarking, and performance goals. She also led the effort that saved San Diegans billions of dollars on future bills by fighting both in the Congress and in the courts a blanket federal requirement to build costly, unnecessary sewage facilities that did not benefit San Diego's environment. For her success, she and the San Diego City Council twice have been honored with the Golden Watchdog Award by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.

Mayor Golding was member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and was appointed by the Governor to chair the Commission on Local Governance for the 21st Century for the State of California. At the request of the Governor, she chaired the California Military Base Reuse Task Force, and served as Co-Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Military Base Closure Committee. Numerous changes in state and federal laws were made as a result of her efforts that have made it easier and less costly to develop closed military bases across the nation.

As Mayor, Ms. Golding wrote the 20-year plan for the San Diego economy, which was adopted by all cities, chambers, economic development corporations and school districts in the region and continues to guide the region today.

She received the Outstanding Achievement Award by the National Women's Political Caucus, and was presented the Catalyst of Change Award by the Chamber of Commerce for her economic leadership.

She has been honored by Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the West, and Who's Who in American Politics, and Who's Who in American Women. She was honored for her leadership in providing law enforcement services to San Diegans by the Stamp Out Crime Council, was given the Mayor of Excellence Award by the Black Contractors Association, was presented the Women Who Mean Business Award for Outstanding Government Leadership by the San Diego Business Journal, and given the International Citizen Award by the World Affairs Council of San Diego, and was honored by the Endangered Habitats League for her work in establishing the nation's largest open space and habitat preserve. She also received, among many other awards, the Willie Velasquez Political Award from the Mexican American Business and Professional Association.

Ms. Golding holds a Bachelor's degree in Government and International Relations from Carleton College, a Master's degree from Columbia University, Certificates from the University of Paris, and taught as a Ph.D. fellow at Emory University. She has an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from California Western School of Law. Ms. Golding has two adult children.