Background and Early Career
Chiang is the son of immigrants from Taiwan. He was born in New York City and grew up in Chicago. Chiang attended Carl Sandburg High School where he served as student body vice-president alongside student body president Dave Jones. Lifelong friends, Chiang and Jones would run again together in 2010 on the California Democratic slate, with Chiang winning reelection as state controller and Jones being elected California Insurance Commissioner. He graduated with honors with a degree in Finance from the University of South Florida and has a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He came to Los Angeles in 1987 where he got involved with the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley and the West LA Democratic Club.
Chiang began his career as a tax law specialist for the IRS. He worked as an attorney for then California State Controller Gray Davis, and also worked on the staff of California Senator Barbara Boxer. He was first elected to office as Member of the Board of Equalization in 1998 and elected to a second four-year term in 2002.
Read more about this topic: John Chiang (California Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words background and, background, early and/or career:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)