For Susan Fish, public service starts close to home

Susan Fish has spent most of her life in and around Los Gatos, moving between professions and community roles with a consistent set of concerns: access, responsibility, and how institutions can better serve the people around them.

Those concerns now shape her work as the West Valley-Mission Community College District trustee representing Area 7, a seat she has held since 2016. She currently serves as the board's vice president.

Fish is a West Valley College graduate, the parent of two West Valley College graduates, and was a faculty spouse for 26 years. She is an attorney and a registered nurse who founded her own law firm in 2020. She also served on the Los Gatos Planning Commission and Rent Advisory Commission, and chairs the district's Audit and Budget Oversight Committee, partnering with district leadership to ensure resources are stewarded responsibly in service of expanding local educational access.

Fish traces her belief in education back to her father, physician Edwin A. Oster, for whom Oster Elementary School was named. "Education is everything," she said, a phrase she describes as her father's.

Her own path reflects that. She began in nursing, went into law, and eventually started her own firm. "You never stop learning, you just never do," she said. "As you learn more, you can do more, and your options are greater, even later in life." That service orientation, she says, carried across professions: "Even if you go from nursing into something totally different, like law, you never lose that baseline perspective."

That same orientation shows up in how Fish talks about Los Gatos. "We're a small town, and yet we're not isolated from our neighboring communities," she said. "I've seen us get together and help one another, unselfishly, on so many occasions over the years. That connectedness has always inspired me to contribute and give back in some way."

Her years on the Rent Advisory Commission gave her a close view of housing pressure in the South Bay, a concern that has carried into her trustee work. West Valley-Mission recently launched a partnership with San José State to fill SJSU's dormitory vacancies with high-need West Valley-Mission students, part of a broader push to address basic needs in the local community.

At the district, she describes eliminating barriers as a primary goal. "There is no one size fits all," she said. "People have needs that must first be identified. Once you know what barriers they are facing, then you work to see what's possible. How can we have this group of people thrive?"

That philosophy is reflected in countless other district efforts. WVM sponsored legislation that passed into law, enabling free tuition within the service area, and operates a Free Meals Program that removes hunger as a barrier to academic success. This fall, West Valley College launches a Community Caregiver Certificate Program, part of a broader push to expand educational programs and services for older adults that Fish has championed alongside her board colleagues, with a planned Center for Aging and a new Gerontology Certificate to follow.

One of the clearer examples of Fish's approach is her role in bringing the College of Adaptive Arts to the West Valley campus. Co-founder DeAnna Pursai said Fish was instrumental in that effort.

Pursai said Fish learned about the program in 2019 when she toured the College of Adaptive Arts with Chancellor Brad Davis, former trustee Jack Lucas, and Rod Diridon Sr. At the time, the program needed a new home after losing its downtown San Jose location. Fish and district leadership helped relocate the program by repurposing a former Disability and Educational Support Services portable on campus.

Pursai said Fish was among the volunteers who came out to paint the site in 2021. Fish "intuitively understood the importance of giving adults with special needs access to intellectually stimulating environments," Pursai said, calling her "kind, supportive, and transformative" in the process.

Asked what comes next, Fish points to the Center for Aging, which would house Community Caregiver programs alongside partnerships with senior-serving organizations. "Retirement isn't the end of learning," she said. "For a lot of people, it's where the most interesting questions start."