Joe Camicia, Chief of Staff
Joe Camicia is a native of Alameda, California. After graduating from college, Camicia was appointed a marketing manager for United Cable Television's (now Comcast) Bay Area systems.
After United, Camicia became Director of Government and Cable Relations for San Francisco public broadcaster KQED, Inc. While at KQED, Camicia was elected to two terms (1987–1992) on the Alameda, California City Council (75,000 population).
While serving as a Councilmember Camicia was appointed Senior Consultant to the Assembly Rules Committee of the California Legislature where he helped to develop and distribute what is now known as the California Channel, a statewide cable programming service not unlike C-SPAN.
In 1993 Camicia moved to Dallas to take a job as Director of Government Relations for Crown Media, a cable/broadcast subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Crown was sold to Marcus Cable in 1994 and at Marcus Camicia built that company’s first government and public relations department. Marcus Cable merged with Charter Communications in 1998 and upon completion of the regulatory approvals, Camicia moved to southern California to become Vice President of of Government and Public Relations for Charter’s Western Region. In the summer of 2001 Camicia took a leave of absence from Charter to return to the state capitol to work as a consultant to the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee on the decennial reapportionment process.
In 2003 Camicia moved back to Sacramento fulltime to become Principal Consultant to Senate Majority Leader Don Perata. While serving as an advisor to Perata on telecom issues, Camicia was active in the drafting and negotiations of AB 2987 (DIVCA). Camicia also served as Executive Director of the Senate Majority Caucus while retaining his job as a policy advisor to the pro Tem.
In July of 2007 Camicia was appointed Governor Schwarzenegger’s Advisor for Policy and Planning at the California Public Utilities Commission working on telecom regulation. In July of 2008 Camicia was appointed Chief of Staff to one of Governor Schwarzenegger’s newest cabinet secretaries and Chief Information Officer Teri Takai.
Camicia is married to Colleen Gilbride. They are the parents of Cara, a senior at Arizona State and Conor, a United States Marine. Joe and Colleen live in Sacramento, California.