Smith Policy Group provides a team-oriented approach to solving clients’ legislative, regulatory, and funding priorities. Whether its legislative strategy, regulatory support, project and program funding development, budget process expertise, or overall policy guidance, the firm has deep expertise and widespread relationships with Legislative leadership and the Governor’s office, including key committee chairs, staff and members of policy and budget committees to accomplish clients’ objectives.

Prior to founding SKV and Smith Policy Group, Mark was a contract lobbyist and Senior Policy Advisor at Environmental and Energy Consulting and Conservation Strategy Group. Before that, Mark was the Western Region Director of Public Policy for Ducks Unlimited, where he directed all local, state, and federal policy and strategy for nine western states. He previously worked as an in-house lobbyist for Sempra Energy, one of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, and represented ACEC California for 6 years as their in-house lobbyist. He has also worked as a Legislative Director in both the California Senate and Assembly. Mark started his career in policy and politics in the Capital Fellows Programs, a nationally recognized public policy fellowships which offer unique experiences in policy-making and development in each branch of government.

Mark is a Board Member of the Institute for Governmental Advocates, a past president of the Capitol Fellows Alumni program (10 years of services),and has previously served on the California Water Commission’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee for Proposition 1 to guide its implementation. In his “spare” time Mark is an Adjunct Professor at the University of California Davis Graduate School of Management where he has taught a self-created course on Business and Politics for the past 11 years.

Mark graduated with an MBA from University of California, Davis’ Graduate School of Management, and a BS in Microbiology from University of California, Davis.

John is a Past Member and Past Chairman of the City of Sacramento Planning Commission where he oversaw the City’s explosive residential growth and innovative infill and new urbanist projects for a decade. He is a Past Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He is Past Chairman of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Equal Business Opportunity Program (EBOP) Citizens Advisory Panel. He was also a Charter Member of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Citizens Advisory Committee and completed a ten-year term as a Member of the District Attorney’s Multicultural Cabinet. He served as Treasurer and Legal Counsel for Women in California Leadership, the charitable arm of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, and held comparable positions with the California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation and the California Latino Legislative Caucus Leadership PAC – two independent arms of the largest legislative ethnic bloc in the California Legislature.

John is a VSP Global Public Policy Committee Member. He also serves as a Board Director, and Audit Committee Chairman, of the California Prison Healthcare Receivership Corporation, overseeing the state prison system’s compliance with federal court orders. He is a Board Member and Legislative Committee Chair of the Institute of Governmental Advocates (IGA) representing California’s state lobbying corps, and is a long-time member of the California Political Attorneys Association (CPAA).

John is licensed to practice law in all California state courts, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. John’s Bachelor of Arts Degree is from Pomona College. His Juris Doctor degree is from University of Northern California School of Law where he earned Valedictorian honors.

Alex then joined the budget team at the Department of Finance, where he oversaw budgetary issues for the Department of Justice, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, The Victim’s Compensation Board, the State Legislature, and numerous other state agencies.

Alex returned to work in the Legislature as a Policy and Budget Consultant, covering Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 1 (Health and Human Services) and Human Services policy issues. He went on to serve as the Principal Health Consultant for the minority caucus, before being named Chief Consultant and Legislative Director for the Assembly Minority Leader, Marie Waldron.

Alex is a veteran of over a half-dozen marathons around the U.S. Alex and wife, Heather, a Fiscal Analyst with a major financial services firm, are devoting much of their home energies keeping pace with their delightful, if very mobile, one-year-old twins, Emma Rose and Maverick, and their sentinel Rhodesian Ridgeback, Justice.

Alex attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, Baylor University in Waco, TX, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from CSU Sacramento. A member of the California Bar, Alex holds a Juris Doctor from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.