A M A N W I T H A P L A N
Looking into Roy Swearingen’s life of community service
20 MARKETPLACECONTRACOSTA.COM JULY 2017
By Matt Larson
If you’ve spent any time in the community of
West Contra Costa County over the past few
decades, especially in Pinole, then the name Roy
Swearingen should be pretty familiar to you by
now. He was born in Richmond, grew up in El
Cerrito, and attended Richmond Union High
School and Contra Costa College. He’s been
president of the Pinole Jaycees, the Pinole Rotary
Club, the Pinole Chamber of Commerce, and of
the WCC Police Activities Board of Directors, and
he’ll be serving his 4th term as Mayor of Pinole in
2019. Suffice it to say, he’s a man of West County.
He wasn’t always an organized, active member
of his community, and he credits his involvement
with the Pinole Jaycees—a young man’s service
organization—that led him on this path. “The
Jaycees would put on events for the community,”
he said. “That’s how I got involved in community
service—helping to make changes and trying to
Mayor Roy with Collins school children during the S.A. contest
awards.
accomplish positive things—and I’ve been doing
that ever since!”
Swearingen makes public service look easy, but
the reality of it is that it’s something that a relative
few of us ever actually end up doing. “There’s all
sorts of reasons not to do it,” he said. “You have to
have a desire, and you have to have the incentive to
go after it. And, most importantly, you have to have
a plan.”
During his very first term as a council member
when he was elected in 1986, one his greatest
accomplishments was building the Pinole Senior
Center. “I didn’t do it all by myself, obviously, but
I was part of that,” said Swearingen. “I find that
you could do more with a team than you can as an
individual. Sometimes you get it done and other
times you don’t; there’s frustrations and there’s
successes.”
Roy and Rose Swearingen with Congressional representative
Mike Thompson.