Cari Templeton has excelled as a district representative for Sen. Josh Becker, the senator for District 13, representing Silicon Valley in California, since 2021. In this role, she specializes in digital communication, social media and event planning, with her duties encompassing community meetings, keeping up to date on local issues and speaking at public events on Sen. Becker’s behalf. Concurrently, she has also served as the planning and transportation commissioner for the city of Palo Alto, California, since 2018 and as a state party delegate for the California Democratic Party since 2017. Also since 2017, Ms. Templeton has sat on the central committee of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party.
Throughout the period from 2017 on, Ms. Templeton served in a range of civic roles, including communications and digital strategy consultant for Close the Gap California from 2018 to 2020, a technical consultant for the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution from 2018 to 2019, and the co-founder of Bayshore Progressive Democrats from 2017 to 2020. During this time, she graduated from Emerge California, a program that trains Democratic women to run for elected office, and earned a master’s degree in liberal arts from Stanford University. Ms. Templeton got her start in politics as a volunteer for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016 and has since served as a campaign consultant for numerous local and state elections.
Prior to entering the field of politics, Ms. Templeton had a highly successful career in technology. First achieving a Bachelor of Science in classical studies and computer science from Vanderbilt University, she cultivated her expertise at a variety of tech companies such as Sun Microsystems; BellSouth, LLC; and Google, where she spent roughly a decade in a variety of roles. One of her greatest achievements during this time was leading a project that stabilized the internal systems of the company she was working for at the time and set it up for global compliance. Attributing much of her success to teamwork, Ms. Templeton’s goal for the future is to help great people get elected and help the people currently in office to achieve their goals.