Jerry Brown

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Traits

Family

American politician and noted family, born into politics as the son of Governor Pat Brown. He is considered one of the most exciting and controversial leaders of his generation. After four years of Jesuit training, he went to Berkeley and Yale Law schools. From school, Brown entered a Los Angeles law firm and, as a natural progression, went into politics. His first position was in 1969 on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, a low rung of the ladder. He went on to become Secretary of State in 1970 and, from 1974, a two-term Governor of California. His political career also included runs for President in 1976 and 1980 and in 1992, a third failed bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Brown retreated from political life in January 1983 after a 1982 defeat in a run for the U.S. Senate. During the next six years, he traveled and studied. He worked on a political journal called "New Perspectives" and raised money for the Democrats. He also spent several months in Mexico, and visited China and the Soviet Union. After two years, he decided to explore more inner and outer dimensions. He traveled to Japan where he lived in tradition style and studied Zen meditation with an 80-year-old Buddhist teacher. He then visited Mother Teresa in India and, representing CARE, visited Bangladesh as a special envoy. He learned fundamentally just how prosperous and powerful America really is, as well as how strong people become under adverse conditions. He found an indomitable will to overcome obstacles in the Third World countries, reflective of human courage at its best. In 1989 he returned to the fray as a candidate for chairman of the California Democratic Party. Known as a workaholic, his public presentation is awkward with wooden carriage and no place to put his hands. He speaks spontaneously with no teleprompter or index reminder cards and no speech-writer to craft his words. It's hard to tell just when the awkwardness disappears because suddenly, what he has to say is so absorbing that listeners are engrossed by the rapid fire of his intellect. Brown has always been a visionary and a renegade, playing outside the rules, sometimes called a Dream Merchant, or Governor Moonbeam for his interests in religion, philosophy, metaphysics. Instead of "no comment," he has valid and vivid opinions. Instead of evasion, he shoots straight from the hip. In 1995, he built a three-story, tin-plated loft in the heart of Oakland's deteriorating waterfront, taking over an 18,000-square- foot warehouse next to the Jack London Square. He paid $1.2 million to convert it into a live-in town hall, complete with communal kitchen, a studio and broadcast booth for his radio show, community meetings and classes in yoga and tai chi, founding We the People. It is also a commune for friends and idea-people. Dressed in black, in collarless shirts, the 59-year-old Brown seems like a guru living on the set of "The Real World." Never able to resist the lure of a campaign for long, he set his sights on the post of Mayor of Oakland in 1998. When elected in a landslide, he was sworn in on 1/05/1999 with poetry and promises. A lifelong bachelor, he was linked with singer Linda Ronstadt in the '70s, they went on an African safari together in April 1979. The relationship did not end in marriage. Interviews have gleaned little about his personal life. In April 2005, the 67-year old politician announced that he will wed for the first time in June 2005. The bride-to-be is his longtime girlfriend, Anne Gust, age 47. They married on June 18, 2005 in Oalkland, CA. The politician and his fiancée, Anne Gust, married on June 18, 2005 in Oakland, CA. He ran again for Governor of the state in 2010 and won the election in November. He took the oath of office on January 3, 2011. Link to Wikipedia biography