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Joe Armendariz .......................................... .................... ............Karla Cook
Director, Business Development ........... . ...............................Director, Business Administration

Joe Armendariz is a respected leader in business, government and politics and has been active simultaneously on these fronts since 1994. In 2006, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors unanimously nominated Joe for an appointment to the California Coastal Commission. In 2004, Joe was elected to the Carpinteria City Council and was just re-elected to the council last November.

The Pacific Coast Business Times lists Joe as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the Tri-Counties; Latino Today named Joe one of the 50 most influential Latinos on the Central Coast and the Santa Barbara Newspress named him 1 of the 50 most influential people in Santa Barbara.

In 2007, before forming his own public affairs firm; Armendariz Partners, Joe was the Director of Paladin Institutions, a regional public affairs startup headquartered in Oxnard, Ca. As director of Paladin Institutions, Joe was responsible for developing tactical public and government relations strategies for the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association (SBCTA), Santa Barbara Technology and Industry Association (SBTIA), the World Affairs Council of America and the newly formed California Industry and Trade Council. Joe also provided tactical public relations support to the firms other clients including the Gold Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Zona Seca and the Chumash Casino Resort.

Today, Armendariz Partners is one of the fastest growing public affairs companies on the Central Coast and manages the government relations, public affairs and tactical administration for several local nonprofits including SBCTA; SBTIA; the Greater Santa Barbara Lodging & Restaurant Association, and Fair Managed Care. Armendariz Partners also provides tactical public and government relations support to energy companies including ExxonMobil and PXP.

In addition to his service on the Carpinteria City Council, Joe is an appointed member of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG), the Santa Barbara County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and was recently elected to the California League of Cities influential Policy Committee. Joe is chairs the South Coast Sub regional Committee for SBCAG and he also chairs the SBCAG executive committee.

Joe is the immediate past chair of the Santa Barbara County Economic Vitality Committee and the Santa Barbara County's Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy. He is a founding member of the Santa Barbara County Broadband Task Force, an ad-hoc group established to make telecommunications policy recommendations to the County Board of Supervisors.

Joe has worked closely with the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors for over ten years and was instrumental in the establishment of the 2005 "Blue-Ribbon Budget task Force" which was convened to study the county budget and make cost cutting and efficiency recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

Joe has served on various boards and committees over the past 15 years including the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB), Carpinteria Valley Chamber of Commerce, Zona Seca and most recently the Santa Barbara County Education Office’s special fundraising team for "Computers for Families".

Joe's commentaries on local and state politics, business and economics appear regularly on Fox and Hounds, California Chronicle, CaliforniaRepublic.org, HispanicVista.com, RealClearPolitics.com, Global Politician and American Daughter.

Joe resides in Carpinteria with his wife, four children, two dogs and their cat named Moshe. NOTE: You can join Joe's Facebook, follow him on Twitter and can visit Joe's blog where he writes or posts about a variety of local, state and national political issues and economics issues

Before forming Armendariz Partners with her husband Joe, Karla Armendariz founded KDA Business Solutions to fill a service gap many local companies and nonprofits have for a variety of administrative support needs. Karla’s experience includes working with local chambers of commerce as well as taxpayers, business, industry and trade associations as well as providing tactical support to a local education foundation.

Karla is accomplished at web design and is proficient at Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Illustrator, and Photoshop as well as Microsoft Publisher, Power Point, Outlook and Excel. Karla’s real passion though is for her animals, German Shepherd Maggie & her Havanese Gracie.