For the Coads of Orange County, She’s Elected, but He Also Serves

When Cynthia P. Coad won her seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 1998, there were two things the proud mother of seven, grandmother of 10, said she wanted to bring to her office: a push to improve some of the county’s blighted unincorporated areas and a renewed sense of family.

So she brought her husband, Tom Coad, to the office.

As an unpaid “director in charge of special projects,” her husband--a 69-year-old retired dentist and wealthy investment broker--has raised eyebrows among some county and elected officials.

They complain that his addition has forced an awkward adjustment.

At their best, the Coads are a smooth-functioning team, say supporters.

He answers phones, drives her around town, helps set her agenda and composes speeches, while also serving as confidant and sounding board for ideas. She sets policy.

At their worst, critics say, the unusual partnership confuses the public with her husband serving as gatekeeper, determining who gains access to his wife--now the board’s chairwoman.

After appointments, businesspeople, lobbyists and community leaders sometimes leave feeling uncomfortable because of her husband’s presence.

“In almost every case, those who sit down with the Coads feel it’s awkward. But they have a dynamic partnership that you have to learn to accept and deal with,” said a lobbyist for the health care community.

There have been other husband-and-wife political partnerships, the most obvious ones being Bill and Hillary Clinton and Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Relationship Spans More Than 50 Years

In an era in which Americans are spending more time than ever on the job, it’s not surprising that a growing number of couples are working together.

But what’s unusual here is that it’s the husband who’s helping the wife in the political arena.

The Coads say they have a unique relationship, one that’s spanned more than five decades. Married for 47 years, they met in Iowa when she was 13 and he was the neighborhood paperboy.

The couple married, raised seven children and have become so accustomed to each other that they often finish each other’s sentences.

“Look,” said Cynthia Coad, “I worked as an occupational therapist and put Tom through dental school. Then I worked in his office and did everything from being an answering service to washing out cupboards. I was a ‘Jill of all trades.’ Now that he’s retired, we both agreed [that] it was time for him to volunteer and help me out.

“Just because I’m a woman, does that make it noteworthy? When I was volunteering in his office, besides raising our kids, it didn’t make the back page.”

After six years as a North Orange County Community College District trustee, Cynthia Coad won election to the board in 1998. The Coads raised $600,000 for the campaign, of which $500,000 was in loans to themselves. Republican Party officials told them there would be no financial help because the $108,000-a-year supervisor’s job is nonpartisan.

Coad ran for the office because of what she said was the county’s neglect toward unincorporated areas where thousands of residents like her and her family reside.

“We live in an unincorporated area near Anaheim, and our neighbors pay taxes at the same rate as everyone else in Orange County, and they were not receiving the same level of services,” she said.

Her husband served as her campaign manager, bringing his knowledge of the community gleaned from 35 years as a dentist in Garden Grove.

Tom Coad also started a money management firm, tapping his contacts in the dental and medical professions. He co-founded what is now Keller Group Investment Management Inc., an Irvine-based firm that has slightly more than $1 billion in its investment portfolio.

He sold his interest in 1997, a few years after a fortunate phone conversation with the couple’s son Mike.

“My son was down in San Diego and called up and said, ‘Dad, this is a really good company,’ and that I should contact the principals to possibly invest in them,” Tom Coad said.

The company was Qualcomm Inc. The Coads got in at $4 a share, before Qualcomm went public in 1991 at $25 a share. Qualcomm hovered near $64 a share last week.

The Coads said their Qualcomm stock has split numerous times since, but they were reluctant to provide an exact amount of its worth. Tom Coad has said the value before the huge market dip was much more than a $10-million return.

“I’ve done very, very well in my businesses,” he said, “and I don’t feel any less as a man helping out around here. When a person has self-confidence, they don’t worry about that.”

With the last supervisors’ salary boost in December, Cynthia Coad announced she would double her raise of $10,000 and give it to charity.

Several months ago, the Coads gave $150,000 to a United Way program that will provide recreation, health and other programs in three Latino neighborhoods.

They have provided $65,000 in scholarship funds to nearly 100 recipients as part of their volunteerism awards for people who help in the communities of El Modena in Orange and Colonia Independencia in Anaheim.

When Cynthia Coad came to the board, the buzz was that her husband, who is more political than she, would run the office. He jokingly said: “She’s the dreamer; I’m the schemer.”

“But make no mistake,” Cynthia Coad said during a recent interview, “I run the office.”

And on more than one occasion, she has sternly told her husband to “shut up and listen” during sensitive conversations.

She has carved out her own niche as an enthusiastic supporter of a commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine base, and has pushed for foster care, neighborhood revitalization and improved ocean water quality.

Staff from other supervisors’ offices initially complained that Tom Coad was much more than a volunteer and had been given carte blanche to attend power briefings on the proposed El Toro airport, on hiring a replacement for the county’s CEO, and on the expansion of the James A. Musick Jail in South County.

“At one meeting, Tom Coad was sitting there with elected officials and city managers from Orange, Lake Forest and Irvine, and he led the talk, putting items up on flip cards, asking questions, interjecting himself--and he’s not even a staff member,” said a staffer.

“But everyone knows that if you’re dealing with Cynthia, you’re dealing with Tom,” added a county staff member, who like others employed by the county or having business with it did not wish to be identified.

Before she took office, Coad requested a legal opinion on whether her husband’s presence in her office might cause a problem.

“She said something to the effect, ‘This is my partner for life, and I want to bring him with me to my office to work but in a volunteer capacity,’ ” said County Counsel Laurence M. Watson.

“I told her there is nothing to prohibit him being there. But in terms of what he’s doing there, that’s up to her, not me.”

After two years in office, most of the complaints have subsided. But people meeting the Coads for the first time still leave her office wondering how much authority her husband wields.

James Campbell, an aide in Supervisor Chuck Smith’s office, said at first he had his doubts about the Coads, especially Tom. Now, Campbell calls him the “best bargain on the 5th floor.”

“The voters elected a team,” Campbell said. “You get two for the price of one.”

Certainly, other supervisors solicit advice from their spouses. Smith said he often consults with his wife, Nancy, on important election and district issues and considers Tom Coad an “intimate advisor” to Cynthia.

“Tom can’t always agree with me on certain issues, but he listens and can always carry a message to her. He’s a valuable asset.

But she makes the decisions in that office,” Smith said. “I remember she came to visit me when she was running, and she wanted my support. She came by herself, alone. I was impressed and told her I could support her.”

Stan Oftelie, director of the Orange County Business Council, said he is impressed with Cynthia Coad’s “phenomenal growth curve,” from narrow neighborhood issues to beach pollution, runoff and how street sweeping in the unincorporated areas is linked to better ocean water quality.

The chairwoman “and, to a lesser degree, her husband” have managed to bring an emphasis away from developer interests and target social services and related issues, Oftelie said.

Not everyone is so complimentary, in particular the dozens of independent builders and contractors who tried lobbying the board before it approved a five-year labor pact last year requiring that union workers make up at least 85% of the work force on new major public works projects--specifically all general contracts priced above $225,000.

Though supervisors have denied that the contract was linked to an airport at El Toro, others have maintained that it was a deal to solidify union support against an anti-airport initiative.

‘Seemed Like He Was Running the Show’

John Corry, owner of a Montclair electrical company who was against the pact, wanted to meet with Cynthia Coad.

“I remember the day [Tom Coad] came down and spoke to our group,” Corry said.

“It sure seemed like he was running the show. He was mad . . . at us for being there, and he told us so. Eventually we got in to meet with Cynthia, but he was blocking us downstairs.”

Tom Coad explained his actions as those of an overprotective husband; in hindsight, Coad said, he probably wouldn’t act the same again. “It was a nasty situation,” he recalled. “These people called and made an appointment for 12 to see Cynthia. Well, 200 showed up. They were screaming for a fight, and I told them she’s not going to come down here and be shouted at.”

The Coads defend their relationship simply as one that works.

“I look at this as really trying to set an example,” Tom Coad said. “How many politicians do you know that really have a happy marriage? There’s not that many of them. But we know it’s possible to serve your community and be happily married and work together.”