Sacramento State’s Director of Strategic Communications Ryan Chin is running for Sacramento City Council, District 7.

Chin hopes to strengthen and broaden a business base in Sacramento and to expand the city’s role in education. He said his experiences and educational background would bring a new voice and new leadership to the city council.

“Really, how (Sac State) affected me in terms of being a city council campaign member is, again, reminding me of the importance of what education is,” Chin said.

Chin has worked at Sac State for just over a year. He is particularly impressed by the diversity in the Sac State student body.

“The people at Sacramento State are serving just a terrific variety of students and if I can do that at the city council level, then I know I’m going to make a difference,” Chin said.

A native of Southern California, Chin attended Cal for his undergraduate degree and then went on to study at UC Davis for his Master of Business Administration.

Prior to his job as director of strategic communications at Sac State, Chin worked at Stanford University as associate director of marketing in the school of engineering.

Although Chin has studied and worked with students from multiple schools, he values the motivation of Sac State students the most.

“I love the Sac State students. They are there with a real sense that they need to get their degree to improve their life,” Chin said. “I’ve met students at Berkeley and Stanford that, I think, they consider their education and how they got there for granted.”

Chin was also a policy planning commissioner for Sacramento County. He said he enjoys seeing people strive for bigger and greater things and challenging himself to take the next step up.

“I think he has the highest ethical and moral conduct I’ve seen, personally, as a commission member,” said Candice Fields, an attorney who served with Chin on the Sacramento County Policy Planning Commission.

Fields said Chin has sincere consideration for the people he works with.

“He makes great effort to give people a voice before making decisions that affect them,” Fields said.

Chin is an active member of the Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Advocacy and Leadership. The organization focuses on raising civic awareness and empowerment of its member organizations and of Sacramento’s Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. Chin serves as chair for the Marketing and Media Committee in the organization.

“He is passionate about important issues,” said Timothy Fong, chair of ethnic studies at Sac State. “He works well with people and works for consensus. He’s very genuine in his reasons to run for office, to improve the community.”

Fong, who is also a CAPITAL member and chair of the Education Committee, has worked with Chin on many projects.

The most recent community project Chin worked on is called The Power of No. The conference, put together by CAPITAL, focuses on educating middle and high school youth about dating violence and abusive relationships.

Fong said he has no doubt Chin will carry out the goals he has for the city of Sacramento.

“All my experiences with him, he’s focused very well on what needs to be done and accomplishes what needs to be done,” Fong said. “His running for office is not a pie in the sky pipe dream.”

Inna Gritsak can be reached at [email protected],