Chuck Reed, a Democrat who served two terms as mayor of San Jose, Calif., now practices law in San Jose with the firm of Hopkins & Carley and is a member of the board of the Retirement Security Initiative, a bipartisan national advocacy organization for fair and sustainable public pensions. Through his efforts, a comprehensive pension-reform measure was approved by San Jose's voters in 2012, and he is working to have a statewide pension-reform measure placed on the California ballot.
Before serving as mayor of San Jose, Reed served on the city council and as a city and county planning commissioner. A native of Kansas, Reed attended the Air Force Academy and served in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He also received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University and graduated from the Stanford University Law School.
