Who's Who: Sam Krueger, Mortgage Banker and Environmental Quality Committee Member

Name: Sam Krueger

Age: 41

Occupation: Mortgage banker with RPM Mortgage in North Berkeley

I’m a mortgage banker with RPM Mortgage, a local company based in Walnut Creek. The branch I work out of is in North Berkeley at Shattuck (Avenue). What I like about it best is the educational aspect — making sure people really understand the biggest investment that they make. Also, in an industry where, as everyone knows, over the years there have been some unscrupulous practices. I take pride in doing a good honest job. I enjoy the aspect of getting people in their homes and seeing the joy that they get out of that.

And you and your wife () have lived in El Cerrito for some time now? I believe we moved here in 1996. I went to high school out in Walnut Creek. Then after college and meeting Catherine in France, we moved back to the Bay Area and settled in the hills around Berkeley. We lived in a few places and ended up in El Cerrito for a lot of reasons: it’s a great place to live, it’s close to everything, it’s centered around Berkeley. It’s got public transportation, nice shops, is real close to Solano Avenue and makes for a nice lifestyle.

You’re also involved with the City of El Cerrito? Starting about two or three years ago, I’ve been a member of the El Cerrito Environmental Quality Committee. That’s a committee that works with the city and the City Council on everything environmental. It’s a very broad definition, so it’s been very fun.

What things have you been able to do? I’ve been working a lot on the establishment of what we call our “Green Teams,” which is trying to create a network of volunteers for all kinds of projects; and we’re still just getting that going. A couple of noteworthy things we’ve done include tree plantings and helping out with Earth Day events. Also, we’ve had a group form around the that’s been pulling broom, one of our worst invasive plants, and we’ll try to keep that going.

That’s great. I know that area gets really overgrown. I think we’ve made some progress there and we’ve done a lot of cleanup events – one coming up this weekend, actually, on Saturday June 11. It’s easy to go get information on that by clicking around on the city's environmental services site.

We’re looking at a lot of things: climate change, spreading the word on energy, the Green Team thing. We also were the starting point for the revision on the animal ordinance — people came to us and wanted to propose that. We looked at it carefully and made our suggestions, and now that’s being turned into policy. Another focus has been recognizing green businesses, or rather looking at business environmental records. And people as well: we gave out awards on Earth Day, for “green champions,” I think we termed it. There’s been a focus also (on) looking at reducing waste for restaurant take-out ware. All kinds of little projects; it’s really fun.

El Cerrito is really trying to be much more conscious of environment and… The message I would send too is that we’re really, really lucky in El Cerrito to have a great city staff and a great City Council that really get all this stuff. Everyone I’ve had the chance to interact with is just fabulous — people with forward-looking vision and great values. It’s a great place to be right now if you’re really interested in any of this, because everyone is really focused on moving forward and doing good stuff.

What do you like to do for fun? I like to read. I like outdoor activities of all sorts. We like to ski. The thing there really is exposing our kids to a different lifestyle: being in the mountains and the beauty that comes with that and the thrill of skiing. This weekend I’m actually going backpacking with someone from the El Cerrito staff. I really enjoy being outdoors with the flowers and the birds. I like cycling as well, doing that with the family is great too.

Is there anything else you would like to add? Everyone in El Cerrito should know who is. She was recently our mayor; now she’s still on the city council. Everyone in the Bay Area owes a debt to her for all the work that she does, but especially El Cerritans — she’s an amazing person who has tirelessly worked on behalf of so many great issues.