Doug Furman

Doug Furman(opens in new window), who graduated with a BA in Economics in 1978, is harbormaster at Westpoint Harbor LLC(opens in new window) in Redwood City, California.  He was one of the first to get a minor in Collective Bargaining from the Economics Department under the leadership of Professor Jay Lyman. Doug worked as an intern for the City of Sacramento for 9 months after he graduated from Chico State.  His internship turned into a full-time job with the City and County of Fresno as assistant to the executive director in charge of human resources where he worked for the next seven and one-half years.  Doug then moved on to be labor relations manager in charge of all negotiations representing management for the City of Fresno where he worked for 8 years.  During that time he was the chief negotiator in the Charter Section 809 case(opens in new window). “This was a State Supreme Court case on negotiations where we prevailed at turning over a Charter section that had previously guaranteed wages to Police and Fire, landmark,” Doug stated in a recent email.

Doug also ran a transit system for three years and did international human resources in the private sector for over eight years with responsibility for over 30 countries.

“Being a Harbormaster is just something fun to do while reducing the stress of full-time work and leaving behind the HR side” Doug stated in a recent email.  “So I would say that I used my "Economics" degree pretty effectively......always considering the opportunity costs to options, and evaluating supply and demand, more on a micro than a macro. I tutored two people who got A's in Economics as well, so Chico couldn't have been all that bad.”  (Last Updated 10/7/17)