Spectrum June 2013 Issue - The Spectrum Magazine - Redwood ...
Spectrum June 2013 Issue - The Spectrum Magazine - Redwood ...
Spectrum June 2013 Issue - The Spectrum Magazine - Redwood ...
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28, lives in Santiago, Chile, where he works<br />
for a large multinational engineering firm. His<br />
specialty is designing structures for long tunnels.<br />
Enjoys traveling, hiking<br />
and reading<br />
When he is not busy with his superintendent job,<br />
Lianides enjoys traveling. He’s been to not only<br />
Peru but also Mexico, Turkey, Greece, Albania,<br />
Italy, Spain and Holland. Additionally, Lianides<br />
enjoys hiking and reading.<br />
Good at construction<br />
Lianides is pretty good at construction. His father<br />
was a sheet metal worker and he has been able<br />
to apply those skills in his home. “I know how<br />
to frame, how to do plumbing,” he said. “I have<br />
installed tile floors.”<br />
Loves rocks and minerals<br />
What’s one thing most people don’t know about<br />
Lianides? He is passionate about geology and<br />
collects rocks and minerals, he said. He has a<br />
large collection at home and a small collection in<br />
his office. He likes to know the names of different<br />
formations, how they were formed and where they<br />
are found, he said.<br />
Extremely loyal<br />
to everyone<br />
Gary Bulanti, broker associate for Alain Pinel<br />
Realtors in Menlo Park, has known Lianides for<br />
about 41 years. Even though they are both from<br />
<strong>Redwood</strong> City, they never met one another until<br />
they were freshmen at the University of California<br />
at Berkeley. And they’ve been friends ever since.<br />
“He is extremely loyal,” Bulanti said. “He is loyal<br />
to his family, his friends, his students and his coworkers.<br />
He is very intelligent but has a calm about<br />
him that is very assuring. And he is unflappable.<br />
He will remain calm in all matters and any crisis.<br />
His intellect is very steady and unmeasured.<br />
“Over the years, we have traveled together with<br />
our wives and children to Peru and the Sierra<br />
Nevada mountains. I have watched him start as a<br />
teacher who is bilingual, [then become] a middle<br />
school principal, business manager for a school<br />
district in Pacifica, to business manager with<br />
the Sequoia Union High School District, to his<br />
current position as superintendent.<br />
“He is well-respected by co-workers because<br />
he has a great ability to be empathetic because he<br />
has done those jobs. I would imagine that not that<br />
many superintendents have that much experience<br />
or that diverse of a background [when they take<br />
the position]. I know he cares deeply for the district,<br />
that it is important for him to keep the district<br />
moving in the right direction now and in the future.<br />
“Jim is one of my very, very best friends. He is<br />
like family. He makes himself accessible to everyone<br />
in his organization, to parents. He really cares that<br />
every child in the district gets the best possible<br />
education they can. … He is just a really caring<br />
person. He is a loving husband and father. He’s<br />
golden. I’m a lucky guy to have a friend like him.”<br />
Wonderful to work with,<br />
honest and forthcoming<br />
Susan Vickrey first met Lianides around 1996,<br />
when she was principal at Roy Cloud Elementary<br />
School in <strong>Redwood</strong> City. Lianides was a principal<br />
in another district at the time, but his two sons<br />
attended Roy Cloud.<br />
A few years later, Vickrey and Lianides worked<br />
as peers in Pacifica when Lianides was the<br />
business manager and Vickrey was director of<br />
curriculum.<br />
At Vickrey’s retirement dinner in 2010,<br />
Lianides asked if she would be interested in<br />
helping him out for a few weeks because his<br />
human resources person had left suddenly. He<br />
needed someone to start the school year while he<br />
looked for a replacement.<br />
“Somehow, at the party, that seemed like a<br />
good idea,” she noted. “So I went to work for him<br />
in Sequoia for the month of August. Well, a few<br />
weeks became two years. I retired the second time<br />
from Sequoia in 2012.”<br />
Vickrey noted that Lianides “is wonderful to<br />
work with. He is honest and forthcoming. His<br />
word is good 100 percent of the time. He has<br />
a quick understated sense of humor that can<br />
leave one wondering if he was joking or not.<br />
He is thoughtful and careful in his decisionmaking<br />
process. He collects information and<br />
communicates with those affected by the<br />
outcome. <strong>The</strong>re have been a number of times over<br />
the years when I have disagreed with him. But<br />
I knew he had evaluated the situation and done<br />
what he honestly believed to be best.<br />
“We are friends. Jim and his wife have been<br />
longtime friends with my husband and me. He<br />
was supportive through my cancer in 2008. He<br />
is kind. He is a wonderful father for his two<br />
successful sons.<br />
“Professionally, Jim has made a difference to<br />
thousands of kids. He taught bilingual education<br />
in <strong>Redwood</strong> City. He was a successful middle<br />
school principal. He balanced a difficult budget in<br />
Pacifica. He remodeled every school in Pacifica on<br />
time and on budget. He found funding for my many<br />
curriculum projects that increased the district’s<br />
Academic Performance Index (API) to over 800.<br />
“He is working to better the educational<br />
opportunities for all students of Sequoia. He is<br />
magic at school funding. He understands it better<br />
than anyone else in education and he can explain<br />
it. He works to secure every dollar that a district<br />
is entitled to and ensures that the money is spent<br />
appropriately to enhance education for kids. San<br />
Mateo County has been lucky to have him in each<br />
of his varied positions.”<br />
“Professionally,<br />
Jim has made a<br />
difference to<br />
thousands of kids.”<br />
“This is a district<br />
that will continue<br />
to meet its<br />
challenges.”<br />
“It is a great<br />
community today,<br />
but it was a great<br />
community then.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Spectrum</strong> 15