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Betty Yee, a highly respected public servant with decades of leadership in California government, is an announced candidate for Governor of the State of California. She is widely recognized for her tenure as California State Controller and as a Member of the California State Board of Equalization, where she built a reputation for integrity, fiscal responsibility, and principled governance.
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Golden Gate University, Yee has held some of the state’s most demanding leadership roles, including Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party, Chief Deputy Director of the California State Budget under Governor Gray Davis, and Chief Deputy to Board of Equalization Chair Carole Migden. She was later appointed to the Board herself when Migden was elected to the California State Senate.
The daughter of immigrants who came to San Francisco from Guangdong Province, China, in 1956, Betty Yee brings a deeply personal understanding of opportunity, perseverance, and public service. When she speaks to the Palos Verdes Democrats, she will share her life story, her record of public service, and her bold vision for California’s future as Governor.
Yee will address the extraordinary challenges—and opportunities—facing California today: governing the most diverse and complex state in the nation, home to the fifth-largest economy in the world, while protecting its people, values, and environment. She will also confront the damage done by the aggressive and chaotic misleadership of Donald Trump, including attacks on sanctuary jurisdictions, unconstitutional ICE practices, threats to birthright citizenship, misuse of the National Guard, mass deportations, and systematic efforts to dismantle California’s landmark clean air, water quality, renewable energy, and public health protections.
This is a unique opportunity to hear directly from, and interact with, a proven leader who understands California’s institutions, its people, and its global significance—and who is prepared to lead the state forward with competence, courage, and compassion.
Following the presentation and conversation with California Gubenatorial candidate Betty Yee, the PV Dems are proud to present another featured speaker whom The Guardian UK ranked as #1 in their world-encompassing list of the “Top 50 People Who can Save Planet Earth.” Terry Tamminen is currently the President/CEO of the non-profit “blue economy” hub AltaSea, based in the Port of Los Angeles. “Blue Economy” refers to the developing sustainable commerce of the sea, incorporating fisheries, marine and coastal resources, wheras “Green Economy “ typically relates to the land-based energy, transport, agriculture and forestry sectors. Both use strategies to address climate mitigation and adaptation, while providing tangible real-world economic benefits.
As a Blue Economy pioneer, Terry Tamminen’s experience and qualifications are substantial. In 2003, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Tamminen Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and later Cabinet Secretary and the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor. He cofounded the R20 Regions of Climate Action(now the Catalytic Finance Foundation), a public-private partnership working globally to deploy climate solutions at scale. Catalytic Finance Solutions provides climate policy guidance to 7th Generation Advisors, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Pegasus Capital Advisors, and the UN Green Climate Fund.
An accomplished author, Tamminen’s books include Watercolors: How JJ the Whale Saved Us and Cracking the Carbon Code: The Keys to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy.
AltaSea, with President Terry Tamminen at its helm, has real accomplishments, including conceiving and building a major R&D and commercialization infrastructure at the working Port of Los Angeles. A dedicated ocean-innovation campus – AltaSea’s facilty is an urban, ocean-based research + blue-tech hub, designed to co-locate research, workforce training, and ocean businesses in one place. To take an original concept to reality, AltaSea rehabilitated and modernized an historic waterfront warehouse space into its Center for Innovation at Berth 58 as part of a multi-warehouse redevelopment. The Berth 58 Center for Innovation has been positioned as a home for researchers affiliated with USC, UCLA, and Caltech, and has participation by prominent ocean explorer Robert Ballard—the point being: AltaSea is acting as a unified platform for research groups that usually live on separate campuses to operate side-by-side at the waterfront.
AltaSea has worked to establish and host a significant seaweed aquaculture/breeding and production research footprint, including a USC-linked sustainable seaweed aquaculture lab supported by ARPA-E’s MARINER program, aimed at scaling seaweed varieties and applications (e.g., feedstocks, biochemicals, alternative feeds). This matters for the blue economy because seaweed/kelp sits at the intersection of climate solutions, ocean-friendly production, and new marine supply chains—and AltaSea is helping make that R&D “real” in L.A. Harbor rather than purely academic.
AltaSea frames its mission around job creation and workforce development as part of blue-economy growth, withinternship-to-employment outcomes—i.e., interns converting to hires with tenant businesses—showing an on-ramp from training to paid work inside the same ecosystem. Additionally, AltaSea’s is not a single incubator/accelerator, but a convener of multiple incubators/accelerators with blue-economy business alliances—which is often what a region needs to turn scattered ocean innovation into an investable, employable cluster.
Terry Tamminen will tell us his story, and share his vision about AltaSea and the achievable dream of sustainable prosperity, a Blue Economy and a world preserved – all at the January 18, 2026 meeting of the Palos Verdes Democrats.