Meet Aaron
Aaron Klein is a native born Californian, and has lived in the same community in Northern California since he was seven years old. He grew up as the oldest of six kids in a middle class family.
In 2001, Aaron married Cacey Steward Klein. It is a true story that after meeting her for the second time at the age of 14, he had decided he would marry her some day (it only took her eight years to agree). Cacey is a blogger, a talented decorator and designer, and has her own business in distinctive foods and gifts.
Together, they experienced the miracle of adoption when they brought Spencer Daniel Sang-Jin Klein home from Seoul, South Korea on November 9, 2007. Spencer turned two years old on March 17, 2009. He enjoys playing Thomas the Train and his Elmo electric guitar. His dad believes he is a future baseball player, perhaps first as a Sierra College Wolverine.
The Kleins are currently in the process of adopting Emma Nichole Asnakech Klein from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and look forward to bringing her home in early 2010.
They are active members of their church, Foothill Christian Fellowship, in Meadow Vista.
Career in Entrepreneurial Business
At the ripe old age of twelve years old, Aaron began working in the afternoons, after school, for his dad’s wholesale distribution company. After starting in the shipping room, he worked his way up to managing sales, marketing and operations at the company.
His entire career has been working with entrepreneurial businesses. He founded (and sold) a web consulting firm that revolutionized online political communication and fundraising for candidates running for Governor of California, United States Congress, State Senate and State Assembly.
He built a business operations software company that was named to the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance’s Tech Index, and drove the development of products to manage product and pricing data for wholesale distributors, and sales and commission reconciliation for wireless channel resellers.
He has also worked to build new business units and drive growth through the application of emerging technologies and development of new business models for established companies in the financial and software fields.
He currently sits on the boards of wiOps and BizFlex.
Education Reform
Aaron has invested a great deal of time in efforts to reform the education system and ensure that it can be a powerful engine for American prosperity and competitiveness once again.
He was elected in 2004 as a member of the Sierra College Board of Trustees. After the change in leadership, he led the way to a balanced budget and prudent reserves policy that built $4 million in new surpluses by the end of 2008, allowing the college to continue to expand enrollment during the fiscal crisis that followed. He was re-elected to the board in 2008, winning substantial majorities in every major city in the district.
Aaron continues to serve on the board at Sierra College. His priorities are increasing access to college for those with fewer opportunities; strengthening the ties between the college and the job-creating businesses that need a qualified workforce; and finding innovative ways to repair classrooms and labs, and invest in the future college facilities that the region will need in order to thrive. His current term will end in December 2012.
Personal
In between his family, work in entrepreneurial business, and public service, Aaron finds time to write, read history and fiction, run, watch movies, cheer on the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and spend time with an immediate family that currently totals four parents, twelve brothers and sisters, three in-laws and seven very adorable nieces and nephews.
