Immediate Past President and Alumni Regent

Alan Mendelson says his big break came in 1980: "As a first-year law partner, I was handed a startup company that turned out to be Amgen." He continues to represent biotech, medical device and other technology firms. "Helping to build companies out of the vision of a scientist or engineer is very rewarding," he adds. "But when it is life sciences, I work with people who are striving to improve the human condition."

Mendelson's Berkeley experience was shaped by the traumas of People's Park and the Vietnam war, but he found joy elsewhere, in the company of fraternity brothers, at football and basketball games, and in the classroom. He joined the Cal in the Capitol program, and then spent three summers working in San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto's office, an experience that soured him on politics, "which was good for me and good for the world," he says.

Married with two adult children, he has served on a number of commercial and nonprofit boards, including the National Kidney Foundation. He and his wife actively support the Lucille Packard Foundation for Children's Health. Mendelson hopes to use these experiences on the CAA board as it implements reforms.
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