Ken Eichstaedt, an unlikely politician, felt nervous the first time he knocked on doors in his hunt for votes in Novato. Would people give time to a West Marin water board candidate, a relative unknown from the far side of the district? Would they slam the door in his face?
The doormat at one house was not encouraging. “Don’t come knocking unless you got a warrant,” it said.
Mr. Eichstaedt, an engineer who lives in Olema, skipped that one but found a welcoming audience across the street. “The majority of people are appreciative if someone takes the time to talk to them,” he said. “If you’re genuine in your approach, they’re really willing to listen.”
Mr. Eichstaedt, 62, is a wonkish fellow whose enthusiasm for clean water and solving engineering challenges is nothing if not sincere. And he has proved to be a successful student of nuts-and-bolts politics, heading toward a landslide victory in his campaign for a seat on the North Marin Water District board. With most of the ballots counted, he has won roughly two thirds of the vote.
Mr. Eichstaedt’s Nov. 5 victory came even though 80 percent of the voters in his district live in Novato, the hometown of his opponent, Mary Stompe, whose mother-in-law once served as the city’s mayor and was honored as citizen of the year.
But Mr. Eichstaedt had something more important: extensive engineering experience, much of it spent working on water systems. Although this was his first campaign, he had been serving on the board for a year and a half, filling a vacancy that arose when Jim Grossi died. Previously, he served as general manager for the Inverness Public Utility District, and he recently retired as a traffic engineer with the City of Petaluma.
His career includes work on a $200 million seismic improvement project for the East Bay Municipal Utility District and a $4.8 billion program to repair and upgrade portions of the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.
“He’s not an unlikely person to sit on a water board, given his passion for the subject matter and his experience with water systems,” said his wife, Amanda Jones Eichstaedt, who works as the station manager of KWMR. “But when it comes to doing a campaign, he’s the least political person that I could imagine.”
Though Mr. Eichstaedt overcame his distaste for door-knocking, coming to terms with yard signs was more challenging. “Oh my god, you’re putting up visual pollution—non-renewable plastic resources,” he lamented. “It’s visual pollution in the public corridor with your name on it. I hated that!”
Each time he put up a sign, he would atone by picking up nearby litter.
Mr. Eichstaedt took a crash course in campaigning from Inverness resident Jerry Meral, an environmental conservationist who served as deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources under former Governor Jerry Brown.
“He was very diligent, and the campaign came together pretty rapidly,” said Mr. Meral, who met with Mr. Eichstaedt once a week at Toby’s to discuss strategy and tactics.
Mr. Meral had worked on various local political campaigns, including Dennis Rodoni’s first run for the Board of Supervisors—a position he won after serving several years on the North Marin water board.
“I’m not some super campaign professional, but I know a few things about it,” Mr. Meral said. “And Ken is a fast learner.”
He encouraged him to send out a mailer, post the dreaded lawn signs, and seek endorsements. Mr. Eichstaedt won several, including those of Mr. Rodoni, the Marin Independent Journal, the Marin Democratic Party and the Mainstreet Moms of West Marin.
Cathleen Dorinson, a member of Mainstreet Moms, attended the group’s potluck where Mr. Eichstaedt, a hesitant public speaker, gave his pitch. “He wasn’t pompous,” she said. “Ken is a representative. He actually cares about us. A politician cares about power and money. A representative cares about his neighbors.”
His experience also counted for a lot, Ms. Dorinson said. “He really enjoys doing the job. He finds it fascinating. He loves the work, and he wants to learn more. That’s important,” she said.
An avid cyclist, Mr. Eichstaedt showed up to the potluck on one of his 13 bikes. For 26 years, he commuted by bike from Marin to San Francisco, and in 1987, he competed in the first World Mountain Bike Championships in France. He was a founding member of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.
It was bicycling that brought him and his wife together. Amanda was chair of the League of American Bicyclists, a former manager of Palo Alto Bikes and manager Palo Alto’s first bike station—a storage hub for commuters who had sought emancipation from cars.
Ken was interested in learning about the city’s efforts to promote cycling and curious about its budding network of bike lanes. Amanda gave him a tour. Fascinated by the geometrics of the road, Ken pulled a tape measure from his pocket. “Amanda gets off her bike, and she had her own tape measure,” he recalled. “We were measuring infrastructure together. It was great!”
Engineering runs in Mr. Eichstaedt’s family. His father, a World War II veteran, was a lead engineer in the construction of the Richmond Bridge. Ken grew up in Corte Madera, but his dad worked on pipeline projects overseas, taking the family to Nigeria and Iran, where Ken learned to ride a motorcycle on sand dunes at age 13. He still rides them.
His father died in 2008, but his mother, Elnora, who lives in Santa Rosa, is still going strong at 101. He visits her at least twice a week, most recently taking her to a veterans cemetery to visit his father’s grave.
After retiring from his job in Petaluma over the summer, Mr. Eichstaedt has plenty of time to focus on water issues. The water treatment plant on the former Coast Guard property in Point Reyes Station will soon need to be upgraded, and aging redwood water tanks need to be replaced.
The district boundaries will be redrawn next year, eliminating Inverness and areas of Marshall and further reducing West Marin’s influence. If he runs again, Mr. Eichstaedt will have to knock on even more doors in Novato.