Kevin Casey

For the past four years, Kevin Casey has been an active and productive advocate for urban improvements in his job as v.p. for public policy and communications at the Downtown San Diego Partnership. Now he is looking forward to an adventure that he expects will make him even better at his job.

Casey has been accepted into a prestigious master’s degree program at Harvard. In May, he leaves San Diego to enter the Littauer Master of Public Administration program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The program admits only 210 students each year and seeks candidates with leadership ability in the public sector. Casey is excited about learning ways to improve his own community by interacting with others who have experienced similar situations.

At the Partnership he was involved in making it easier, and cheaper, to park on the street. He also chaired the C Street Task Force which is trying to breathe more life into the trolley corridor. By the time he returns to San Diego in June of 2008, Casey hopes to have many fresh ideas to enhance Downtown.

In the meantime, while he studies, Casey will have his daughter, Courtney, now 9 months, in Cambridge full time. His wife, attorney Diana Casey, will travel between her office with the Latham & Watkins law firm here and the East Coast.

Casey, who has a degree in public administration from SDSU, has been considering this move for several years. “In 2001,” he says, “I went back to Cambridge and walked around to see if I really wanted to be there.” He began the application in earnest a couple of years ago. It was extensive, he says, including taking the GRE, writing essays and seeking references. “It will be a difficult year,” he says, “but it will be worth it.”

— Sandy Pasqua