Candidate for
Member, Republican Party County Central Commmittee; County of Marin; Supervisorial District 3

John C. Duncan's Biography

With over 20 years experience, John C. Duncan is a senior executive with proven strategic skills forged in government and industry settings. He has extensive experience in contemporary labor management issues as well as experience in national security matters.

John Duncan served as Director of the state of California Department of Industrial Relations(DIR) until January 1999. In this capacity, Duncan was the principal advisor to Governor Pete Wilson on labor and employment issues and served in his Cabinet. As Director he was the state designee for the Cal/OSHA program and also head of eleven divisions including the Labor Commissioner's Office and Division of Workers' Compensation. At DIR, Duncan managed approximately 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $220 million. In 1998, Duncan was elected Vice President of the National Association of Government Labor Officials (NAGLO), a national organization composed of heads of state labor Departments around the country.

Throughout his eight years with the Wilson Administration, Duncan consistently demonstrated leadership in key labor reform issues while insisting on fair and impartial enforcement of existing labor laws. To that end he led an effort to modernize the state's labor agency, improving its long-term and day-to-day performance, and enabling it to swiftly respond to specific issues and high-visibility situations. He also initiated partnerships with other states and agencies of the federal government to provide more cohesive and efficient enforcement efforts and enhanced educational opportunities for California's employer community.

Duncan continued to serve the people of California for the following two years as the chair of the state of California's Employment Training Panel which provides over $90 million in training grants to ensure that California employers have the trained workers they need to compete in a global economy. In his role as chair, John was respected by the panel's diverse constituencies for his evenhanded efforts to guarantee that ET grants were fairly distributed among California's employers. He led successful efforts to streamline the contracting process, reduce litigation and remove regulatory barriers to funding computer based training.

Prior to his state service, Duncan was Special Assistant to former Secretary of Defense, Caspar W. Weinberger and worked on his book about his Pentagon Years, "Fighting For Peace" with him. Duncan served in a number of capacities at the Department of Defense during the Reagan Administration. As a special assistant for East Asia and Pacific Affairs he was involved in the preparations for the first official visit by a Secretary of Defense to the Peoples Republic of China in the Fall of 1983. Later as a speechwriter to the secretary he helped prepare him for many notable events such as the Secretary's winning Oxford Union debate against the head of the European disarmament movement, as well worked on what probably became the Secretary's most famous address of this tenure before the National Press Club, "The Uses of Military Power". In 1987, he received the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Public Service.

He earned a bachelor's degree in History from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979 and a masters in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1983.

More recently, John Duncan founded Duncan Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in labor and employment and government relations matters.

Duncan has been active in numerous political campaigns and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Lincoln Club of Northern Californa, a mainstream Republican organization which recruits, trains and supports candidates for elected office, primarily in the greater Bay Area.