Speakers

Tani Cantil-Sakauye is president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, where she holds the Walter and Esther Hewlett Chair in Understanding California’s Future. From 2011 to 2022, she served as the 28th Chief Justice of California and led the judiciary as the chair of the Judicial Council—the constitutional policy and rule making body of the judicial branch—the first person of color and the second woman to do so. 

Before she was elected statewide as the Chief Justice of California, she served more than 20 years on California appellate and trial courts and was appointed or elevated to higher office by three governors. Earlier in her career she served as a deputy district attorney for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and on the senior staff of Governor Deukmejian, first as deputy legal affairs secretary and later as a deputy legislative secretary. 

Currently, she is also an associate professor at the University of Virginia, and a board member for the University of CA Center for Students, the Kaiser Arbitration Oversight Board, and the Alliance of Retired Chief Justices. She holds a BA and a JD from the University of California, Davis.

Julián Castro serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Latino Community Foundation, the nation’s largest Latino-serving foundation. Julián’s deep commitment to the future of this nation is woven into his DNA. Raised by his mother, Rosie Castro, a civil rights and Chicana activist, and his grandmother, Victoria Castro, on the westside of San Antonio, Texas, Julian grew up with a profound understanding of what it meant to love and serve community. 

Inspired by a legacy of leaders working to safeguard our democracy and strengthen community, Julian has dedicated his life to public service. Julián was elected to the San Antonio City Council in 2001 at age 26, then was elected Mayor of San Antonio in 2009. 

In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Julián U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he served until the end of the Obama administration, and in 2020, Julián ran for the Democratic nomination for President. Julián earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate. He is the author of four books of poems: In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems (Gunpowder Press, September 2024); Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award; Gardening Secrets of the Dead; and This Many Miles from Desire.

He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books 2020) and Afterlives: An AGNI Portfolio of  Asian Adoptee Diaspora Writing.

 Herrick serves on the advisory board of Terrain.org and Sixteen Rivers Press. He co-founded LitHop in Fresno.  He has taught in Qingdao, China; at Kundiman in New York City, and for twelve years in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

He was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted as an infant. He lives with his family in Fresno, California and served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. He teaches at Fresno City College. He is the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. In April 2025, he became the first California Poet Laureate to be officially reappointed to a second two-year term.

Dan Walters is one of the most decorated and widely syndicated columnists in California history, authoring a column four times a week that offers his view and analysis of the state’s political, economic, social and demographic trends. He began covering California politics in 1975, just as Jerry Brown began his first stint as governor, and began writing his column in 1981, first for the Sacramento Union for three years, then for The Sacramento Bee for 33 years and now for CalMatters since 2017. 

Dan is also the author or co-author of two books about California, “The New California: Facing the 21st Century” and “The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento.” He is a frequent radio show guest and occasionally appears on national television, commenting on California issues. 

Walters began his career in 1960 at the Humboldt Times in Eureka, California, a month before his 17th birthday, first as a newsroom aide and later as a police beat reporter. Having found his calling, he not only turned down a National Merit college scholarship but dropped out of high school, lacking one required class – ironically civics – to qualify for a diploma. Before moving to Sacramento to cover politics, he was the managing editor of three small daily newspapers.