Growing career technical education, getting previous students back in the classroom and giving faculty more opportunities for professional development.
These are some of the things candidates for the Merced College Board of Trustees say they will advocate for if they win their races.
Three races will appear on the ballot this year for the Merced College Board of Trustees. Trustees on the college’s board haven’t faced challengers since 2020. In previous election years, trustees up for re-election ran uncontested, which according to Merced College spokesperson Jill Cunningham, resulted in an appointment in lieu of an election.
Realtor Mary Camper is running against retired Merced College professor Rich Randall for Area 4 in north Merced. Current Area 4 Trustee Sue Chappell announced her plans to end her term this year.
Incumbent John Pedrozo is running against rancher and Merced College instructor Bob Geyer in Area 7, which includes the eastern parts of Merced county including Planada and Le Grand.
Incumbent Joe Gutierrez also faces a challenger, Sarai Jimenez-Robertson, for the Area 5 seat, which encompasses Los Banos. Gutierrez has held his position since 2012 and is currently board president.
Jimenez-Robertson described herself on county candidate papers as a parent and teacher. News organization Lookout Santa Cruz reported in February that Jimenez-Robertson was placed on administrative leave from a Watsonville elementary school for posting a Pro-ICE comment online.
Parents and community members in Los Banos later posted a petition demanding more transparency and asking to maintain her administrative leave after discovering her new position as the inclusion specialist for the Los Banos Unified School District. It gathered 697 signatures.
The Merced FOCUS was unable to reach Jimenez-Robertson or Gutierrez, despite several attempts.
North Merced candidates focus on experience, communication
When it became known that Sue Chappell would not return for another term serving Area 4 at Merced College, both Mary Camper and Rich Randall said they were ready to take her place. The position represents mostly north Merced, including areas bordering the Merced College main campus.
Camper said she grew up in Merced. Her family owned and operated two clothing stores, both called Stephanie’s in downtown Merced and the Merced Mall, which set her up to be a hard worker.
“I do feel that I have a really good work ethic because I watched my grandparents and my parents and that was instilled in myself and in my siblings,” Camper said.
After graduating from Merced High School and Fresno State, Camper said she worked a number of jobs, including marketing and human resources for a local home care and hospice agency, a director of fund development for Mercy Medical Center Merced Foundation, and an adjunct professor of customer service for more than a decade at the college, before becoming a realtor fulltime. Camper said she is also involved in the community and participates in a number of associations, including Merced Rotary and her real estate association.
All of these positions prepared her for her professional career and helped build the skills to run for board trustee, she said.
As a candidate, Camper pledges to advocate for anyone, not just people in Area 4.
Some of her main priorities include involving more local businesses in college programs and getting more students who dropped out of Merced College to return and graduate with an associates degree. She wants to be “a bridge” between college officials and residents, students, or anyone else who comes to her.
“I need to be out advocating for the college and definitely spreading new things or marketing the college, but also I should be comfortable to be able to ask questions of the leadership,” Camper said. “If I have someone that comes to me that has something wrong, they can come to me, and I can help try to advocate on their behalf.”
Camper is also on board with initiatives that encourage career technical education at the college, she said. Merced College currently offers more than 10 CTE programs for careers such as truck driving, agriculture-related positions, and welding.
“Not everyone is set out to go to a four-year school, and I think university is just becoming so expensive,” she said.
Rich Randall is originally from Kentucky, but as a political science professor at Merced College for more than two decades, he said he has the knowledge, wisdom and care to be the next trustee.
“I’ve talked about politics since the 1980s,” Randall told The Merced FOCUS. “Now, I’m actually gonna give it a try for the first time.”
Randall said he’s been endorsed by the Merced College Faculty Association, the California School Employees Association at the college and the Merced College Police Officer’s Association.
As a previous faculty association president and lead negotiator for three rounds of faculty contracts, Randall also said he’d bring a fair approach to being a trustee.
“I’ve always tried to get to consensus, to get to ‘yes,’” Randall said. “I’ve tried to be a fair person. So when the administration does something good — they’ve done some very good things — I’m going to praise them. When they do some things that I have some issues with, I’ll talk with them. But I’m going to try to be fair to everybody.”
Randall noticed some mixed feelings about Merced College on campus. While some really enjoy the fiscal management, new buildings and career technical education programs at the college, Randall said “there seems to be a lack of relational trust at all levels.” If elected, he said he’d start with a “clean slate,” and try to find out why the lack of trust exists.
Randall looks forward to keeping the college in good standing financially and said he would advocate for more professional development for faculty because he believes it helps students.
“[Faculty] go in more energized for students,” Randall said. “They learn new techniques. They learn new information.”
Even though all three races may be considered “small stakes” to some, Randall said, they’re important for people whose lives were transformed by the college, including himself.
“I was thrilled to see that three of the four races had competition, because I don’t remember the last time that three districts had real competition between multiple candidates,” he said. “I think it’s just healthy.”
South Merced candidates divided on time in office
When Bob Geyer decided to run against Area 7 incumbent John Pedrozo, who’s held the position since 2018, he based his campaign on a challenge for “fresh faces, fresh thoughts, fresh thinking” and a long personal history at the college.
“I started there in 1969, and I haven’t left yet,” Geyer said. “So I think it’s my turn.”
A rancher and businessman, Geyer said he obtained four degrees at Merced College and is a professor who teaches crop science. However, his experience as company president, CEO and board representative for companies in agriculture, construction and distribution is what he said makes him a strong contender. He also noted his experience in being a pest control advisor and working in ag sales and advertising.
Geyer said his business experience can bring a fresh perspective.
“There’s always change,” Geyer said. “We need fresh ideas. We need good positioning. We need financial direction, and those things haven’t changed in quite some time.”
Like Randall, Geyer has also earned the endorsement of the MCFA, the faculty union.
He told The Merced FOCUS he thinks the college has a good president and administration, but he also said he believes that there are gaps that he’d like to help fill. He declined to elaborate on what those gaps are, but he mentioned wanting to see a change at the board level.
Geyer didn’t immediately share what he’d do in his first 100 days of office, but he later talked about advocating for career technical education, especially for people in the area he’d represent.
“The farm people in our area are asking me continually ‘We need welders. We need truck drivers. We need plumbers. We need electricians.’ We’re not doing that right now. We need people who can actually work on tractors. I want to hire them,” Geyer explained. “These are smaller farms all the way up to the larger farms. So I know the direction I want to take this.”
As for the incumbent, Pedrozo said if elected again, he would continue to focus on the shared “community-oriented” vision of the board. A seasoned elected official, Pedrozo served on the school board for Merced Union High School District before serving on the Merced County Board of Supervisors for 12 years.
“I love to see how the college, and from my tenure on there, how we have just continued to excel in every aspect, whether it’s in people that [Merced College President Chris Vitelli] has hired, his cabinet that he has, the faculty that we have, the classified workers that we have, have all built a team,” Pedrozo said.
Pedrozo also talked about growing up on a farm and understanding the goals the college has in investing in agriculture and AgTEC.
“I’ve milked cows. I’ve farmed ground,” he said. “It’s a great life, but it’s a hard life. And I see opportunities at the college.”
He described the success of dual enrollment, the recently opened south Merced community center, the virtual reality lab Dreamscape Learn Lab and the AgTEC innovation at the college during his tenure. He stressed there’s no need for change because “the board that we have now is a solid board,” he said.
“I know Merced’s not perfect, but it’s home, and I love it. There’s no other place I’d rather be, and I try to support as many things as I can,” Pedrozo said. “Now I’m a trustee at Merced College, and I just love the vision that we’re going for.”
Despite that, Pedrozo said competition is always good when it comes to elected positions.
“If you get too complacent in your job, then you’re expecting all the time that well, ‘I’m just going to continue doing what I’m doing,’” he said. “Sometimes it’s not bad to have an opponent.”
