City of Palo Alto City Council Councilmember Alison Cormack

Alison Cormack has two of Silicon Valley’s most familiar names on her résumé: Hewlett-Packard (1993 to 2000) and Google (2011-2015). A Palo Alto resident since 1997, she is married with two adult children. Before her election to the council in 2018, Cormack served the community in various ways, including her work as a board member for the Palo Alto Community Fund, But according to Palo Alto Weekly, she is best known for leading Palo Alto’s push to rebuild its library system. In 2008 she joined Better Libraries for Palo Alto and then was president and board member of the Palo Alto Library Foundation (2005-2015).

Cormack was the top vote-getter in the 2018 election and was eligible to run for another four-year term, but she announced in May of 2022 that she would not seek reelection. The pandemic, she wrote in an article on Medium.com, “served as a catalyst for me to reflect on where the greatest needs are in our larger community.” She told the Palo Alto Weekly that she began volunteering at the Second Harvest Food Bank over the pandemic and plans to focus on hunger and child care issues after she leaves the council.

First elected: January 2018

Day job: Head of Online Help, Google

Alma maters: Stanford University Graduate School of Business (master's degree, business administration); Stanfrod University (bachelor’s degree, economics and history)

Notable quote: “The old ways of sending postcards and expecting people to attend poorly described, formal meetings are not working. The city needs to reorganize information so that it is more visual and designed for the people who live here.” (Source: ElectCormack.com)