MENTOR INTERVIEW

January 2016
Ashley Davies: To start us off, where did you go to college?
Angela Landsburg: I graduated from San Diego State, but I did some of my college at
Junior Colleges in San Diego and Los Angeles.
AD: Why did you decide to transfer to San Diego State?
AL: Initially, I wanted to move out of San Diego after high school, that's when I moved
up to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara where I went to college for awhile as well and then
decided to come back because I wanted to finish at a four year college and San Diego
State is where I wanted to go.
AD: And you grew up in San Diego right?
AL: I did
AD: In North Park correct?
AL: Yup
AD: Did you know what you wanted to do during college?
AL: Heck no! I didn't know what I wanted to do but I knew I liked writing, I knew I liked
working with people, I knew I liked helping people. Other than that I didn't know what
it was that I wanted to be when I grew up.
Eliana Garcia: I remember you telling me that you used to be a teacher, why did you
choose this instead [of continuing that career]?
AL: I was a teacher for twelve years, I taught elementary school and I loved doing that
but I was ready for something different. Before I was a teacher I had also done work
similar to this. Right out of college I worked for the city council for a city council
member. I had done political work, advocacy work, legislative work and liked all of that.
But then I left and decided to be a teacher- which I loved that as well, and then decided
to come back and do this kind of work again.
AD: What was it like going through all those different jobs, is that what helped you
realize that this is what you wanted to do?
AL: This is what I want to do now, but I don't that its what I want to do for the next
twenty-five years. For me, I enjoy aspects of lots of different kinds of jobs. I don't feel
like I have to be doing one kind of job, as long as I'm helping people- which is a big part
of who I am, as long as I'm able to work in a profession that allows me to work and
interact with people- I could never just do a solitary job, something that allows me to be
stimulated by progressive ideas and to be able to make an impact and be able to see the
results of what Im doing and that can exist in a lot of different careers. Right now Im
doing this and I like doing this but you know, there might be other opportunities in the
future. Im really interested in homeless issues and so there's a chance that someday I
might work somewhere in career helping the homeless.
AD: Its comforting to hear you say that because Im struggling to focus on just one
career.

AL: And its also having the skills to do that. You have to be a good writer, no matter
what you do, you have to know how to write. I think being able to work with people and
understanding how to interact in different groups- and that's something that I'm
noticing about the students that come out of your school, yall really know how to
collaborate. You know, if you have a lot of goo skills you can apply them to lots of
different jobs.
AD: Can you expand more on those skills, being able to write, being able to work with
people, what else?
AL: Being able to articulate your thoughts, being able to be resourceful- so if you don't
understand something, how are you going to figure out how to know it? There's always
going to be things that come out in jobs where you just don't know how to do it. Are you
going to be somebody who's going to navigate your way through that and figure out how
to do it? That's a really important skill. Being self motivated to figure things out.
Computer skills- I wish I had better computer skills but that is a big one going out into
the workforce. Those are just some important ones I would suggest, and I'm telling my
daughters the same thing.
AD: How did you know about North Park Main Street?
AL: I lived in North Park and I knew what it was about and what it did and I knew the
women who had my job.
EL: How did you decide that you wanted to work here?
AL: I was teaching and felt like it was time to start doing something else and part of the
reason for that was that I had two little kids- at the time, and I was also teaching little
kids all day long so I would be tying shoelaces and talking to six year olds all day long
and then I would come home and tie shoelaces and talking to six year olds all night long
and I thought to myself, you know I think I need to be in a job where Im around adultsa little bit more, so I started thinking about what I wanted to do and heard that this job
was going to become available. I got my resume together and did a lot of research and a
lot of learning. 120 people applied for this position, I went out there and talked to a lot
of businesses around here to see what types of things they wanted in an executive
director so when I went to the interview I would be able to answer questions and seem
informed of the goals of this organization and I got the job.
AD: Can you talk a little about what you do here, specifically?
AL: The goal of our organization is to support local businesses and the community. The
types of things that I do range from overseeing a sidewalk project down the road to
make sure that our businesses are being looked after, to putting together a magazine
that's being used to bring more people into North Park from other places so they can do
their shopping, and do their dinning. Its looking at different policies and creating
policies that will benefit the community and benefit the businesses for example the city
is doing something called the community plan update which is the rules the regulations
of how our community will grow over the next fifteen or twenty years. I get to be apart of
those discussions and say well, I think the vision of north park should be like this and

that kind of thing. Putting together events, like the festival of arts- ordering fences and
figuring out how to attract a crowd... so it's a wide range of things that I do.
EG: Can you explain the board of directors?
AL: Sure, we're a nonprofit because of the structure that kind of an organization are
required to have some sort of a board that are not considered staff so Im staff, Ronnie is
staff, Jillian is staff were paid staff. Some boards of directors or organizations are paid,
ares is not. They oversee the work that the executive director does for that organization,
so it's sort of a checks and balances- if you think about it in terms of how a government
works, how theres checks and balances that's how a nonprofit's board is set up. I have
the authority to make certain decisions, certain decisions have to go to the board and
they vote on those things. I'll give you a small example, right now were doing a new logo
for our farmers market and I'm going to bring a couple of different suggestions for what
our new logo will look like, because our farmers market is a big part of what we do and
identifies with North Park Main Street, so I'm going to bring some samples to our board
and have them vote on which one they like. It could be the case where I make that
decision on my own that's like one of those things where I can just make the decision
and say Heres what I've chosen but I'm going to chose to bring this to the board and
give them 3 choices to chose from. There are some decisions where they absolutely have
to vote on, that I don't have the decision on Well maybe I'll make this myself or maybe I
wont. A lot of things that have to do with financials, so if I spend a certain amount of
money on something they have to approve that first and we have levels set up for what
those things are. They would have decisions over us changing anything in our by laws or
our organization that determines how our organization runs, mostly things that have to
do with a large amount of money.
EG: What type of people need to be in the board?
AL: They have to be within the boundaries of the [BID] district.
EG: So theyre all business owners?
AL: Yes theyre all business owners
EG: And they all do different things?
AL: yup
AD: There are committees as well right?
AL: Yup, there's committees and there's just the board. There are 15 board members
that all serve on committees. Committees can have people that arent board members,
you can serve on a committee if you want and weve had interns come back and serve on
committees. Theyre people who believe in the work that were doing and want to have
an input in the decisions that are made around here. They run in the election we haveevery year we have an election for our boards of directors and ballots go out to
businesses and the people vote.
AD: What is it like to work for a non profit?
AL: You fix your own toilets, like Julian did yesterday! You have to be committed to
what that Non Profit is about because most non profits the idea is that you're putting the

money that you earned back into that cause and so I don't know many rich people
working at nonprofits. There are some nonprofits that make a whole lot of money, like
the red cross, and that kind of thing, but for the most part I think people associate non
profit work with being committed to what it's about, rather than wanting to make a lot
of money.
AD: What is the most challenging part of your job?
AL: Probably not having enough resources not having enough money to have more staff,
we could be doing a lot more here. There are some challenges working with the city of
san diego because it's a giant municipality in the city of San Diego and they have
limitations on what they can do and they have their rules and regulations and
sometimes their rules and regulations don't make sense to me so that sometimes can be
a challenge.
AD: What is the most rewarding about your job?
AL: Being able to be apart of the work that the small businesses do because those are
people that work really hard to make a living and to help create a community because
their business is the community, I mean if you look at the collective number of
businesses here weather its a barber shop, or a nail salon, a toy store, a restaurant, a bar
or a yogurt shop all of these people are here and that makes up our community and
being able to help with their doing is really gratifying.
EG: I feel like this wouldnt be such a close community without main street.
AL: Yeah its true, I just got an email this morning because theres a community right
over at university heights. University heights does not have a business coronated. Right
now im working with ace parking, they own big parking garages and that type of thing,
they also do small parking lots, its always good to have parking cause when you go intospecially urban communities and its hard to park, people dont wanna go there. So ace
is looking to established little small parking lots, public parking for people. I helped
them do it in North Park so they said can you connect me with a person that does your
job to university heights, we wanna have the same kind program up there and I said
sorry i'm unfortunately there is nobody up there that can help you with that so there is
definitely benefits with a business improvement program in your area.
AD: Your comparing to other communities, like Claremont doesn't have one and you can
really tell the difference in the community, Its really awesome.
EG: Whats the difference?
AL: Not having an organization on the ground representing the businesses, businesses
are hard working they dont have the resources to go and application with themselves
and that kind of thing and so having a organization that does that is really important to
the community.
AD: What do you like most about your job?
AL: I love tons of things about my job. I love that I get to work with people. I love that
i'm always learning, getting to do new things- it's never the same thing. I like that I can
make change happen so I come up with a project, I create the idea for it implement the

project and then see the results of it. I get to see everything from beginning to end. I love
this community and what it's about, I love that it's an older community, I love that it's a
diverse community- there's people off all different ages, and all different colors and
everything else. Being in a diverse environment makes me feel hopeful about the future
that we can all live together and make good things happen. I like the hours, I can be in
my office for a little while, be out of my office for a little while, if I have a lot of work I
can do it from home. I get to go to a lot of events, this morning I was at a press
conference with the speaker of the house Tony Adkins giving a speech that was really
empowering.
AD: What advice would you give to someone pursuing your career?
AL: Make sure that you're committed to working hard and understanding that there's a
lot of ups and downs its not its not consent, you never know what to expect. Sometimes
I come into work and open up my email and its like Whoa! Ive got a lot of fires to put
out today! Doing the research and learning about the communities would be some
advice if you want to do a job like this. Staying informed, reading the newspaper is some
advice I would give to anybody- its different from listening to the news, reading a good
newspaper is different than listening to the news on television, distinguishing those and
finding a good sources of information because theres a lot of bad information out there.
There is real new out there and there is important information out there. Seeking that
out so that you're making good decisions for yourself and for the community by knowing
what the real information is, I would say is really important.
EG: How do you get your volunteers?
AL: I bribe them
EG: How do you find them?
AL: People come to us a lot, because they see the good stuff we're doing and they wanna
be apart of it. I treat them well and that's a big part of it, when you come and work for
free for somebody you want to be treated well so I try to retain our volunteers by giving
them respect and thanking them and make sure they are working on things that are
meaningful to them.
EG: If you didn't have this job what would you like to be doing right now?
AL: As I said, Im really interested in homeless issues so I'm looking for some
organization that is trying to tackle that enormous problem that we have in the united
states but really san diego is so bad. Poverty in san diego, California is one of the highest
states with the highest amount of poverty in the U.S- which is amazing because we have
so many riches but yet we have one of the highest levels of poverty in the U.S. and when
I see people that are homeless, living in poverty and the levels that theyre living in
poverty it makes me feel that I would like to do something about it, and maybe I will!