José A. Gómez, Ph.D., is interim superintendent/president of Pasadena City College (PCC). PCC is the top community college in California for transfer and serves more than 26,100 students. The college provides a high quality, academically robust learning environment, open to all, that encourages, supports and facilitates student learning and success.

Dr. Gómez is a champion for creating greater access to higher education, improving student success, and supporting our region’s most underserved communities through innovative partnerships and programs. His experience as a first-generation college student, raised in the San Gabriel Valley, has inspired his three-decade career in education and government.

Before arriving at PCC, Dr. Gómez served as executive vice president, provost, and chief operating officer at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA), ranked number one in the nation for the upward mobility of its students. At Cal State LA, he was instrumental in strategic efforts to enhance student success, elevate fundraising to historic highs, craft innovative partnerships with government and industry, and deepen engagement with the Los Angeles region.

Dr. Gómez led major initiatives to expand opportunities for students, including Cal State LA’s downtown campus; the Prison Graduation Initiative, California’s first bachelor’s degree program taught in state prison; and Cal State LA BioSpace, a regional bioscience incubator promoting inclusive entrepreneurship. He developed and negotiated the public-private partnership between the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and Cal State LA, and the acquisition and financing for the university’s state-of-the-art Television, Film and Media Center. Dr. Gómez guided research, philanthropic, and facilities initiatives that raised more than $50 million in external funding for Cal State LA. He also helped found Achieve LA, a regional effort with the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, that creates pathways to higher education for local youth and provides civic engagement opportunities for residents in some of the region’s most under-resourced communities.

Dr. Gómez, a civic leader with extensive experience in government, politics, education, and business, previously served as a senior advisor to the president pro tempore of the California Senate. He also held senior leadership positions in the California Department of Justice, the State Treasurer’s Office, and was executive director for the California Educational Facilities Authority.

He serves on the WASC Senior College and University Commission, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation Board of Governors and Executive Committee, the Board of Directors of the Western Justice Center Foundation (immediate past president), and the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles (chair of the Social Impact Council).

Dr. Gómez holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) and master’s degrees in political science and public administration, as well as a Ph.D. in political science, from the University of Southern California (USC).

Current Term

2022 – 2025