UCLA Luskin School graduate loved politics, dogs

Steve Collett, a recent graduate of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and well-known Libertarian activist, died Oct. 27 of complications related to pneumonia.

Collett, 59, was president of Venice-based Collett & Company, Inc., a public accounting firm, for more than a decade before entering political life as a candidate for California’s 33rd Congressional District, which includes UCLA, in 2012.

Jillian Liota, Collett’s daughter, said her father’s interest in entering politics inspired him to return to school and pursue a master’s in public policy.

“He wanted to make sure he had the knowledge that would allow him to be effective,” Liota said “He didn’t want to be a politician that would get into office and then learn, he wanted to learn first.”

The Luskin School helped Collett deepen his understanding of topics he would later debate during his bid for Congress, said Sam Sabzehzar, Collett’s campaign manager.

“(Collett) was able to take something very complex and put it in a very simple way for people to understand,” Sabzehzar said. “But he knew he had to go back to school in order to dissect all these complex things.”

During his 2012 campaign, Collett told the Daily Bruin some of the central topics of his campaign were environmental protection, drug policy reform and health care reform. Collett said his political aspirations began as he followed the escalating violence of the Mexican drug war and the effects of federal drug policy on incarceration rates in the U.S.

Born in Illinois, Collett moved to Arcadia, Calif., with his family as a child, and later attended Arcadia High School. Collett pursued a bachelor’s degree at Colorado College and then a master’s degree in business taxation at the University of Southern California.

Liota recalled her fathertelling her that to have the greatest impact “you have to know all the people,” and joking that a degree from both UCLA and USC would help him connect with different sides of the city.

This June, about a month after his daughter received her master’s degree from Indiana University, Collett graduated from the Luskin School with a master’s in public policy.

“The last time I actually saw him was when he came out for my graduation from IU in May,” Liota said. “We talked a lot about his graduation coming up and how excited he was, and he was so excited we were graduating at the same time and going through the same thing together.”

Collett worked in accounting for most of his career, and was president of the eponymous public accounting firm, Collett & Company, Inc. for almost 15 years.

On the political stage, Sabzehzar said Collett was more interested in publicly debating issues important to voters than advancing a party line.

“When someone else on the stage in a campaign debate said something (Collett) agreed with, he would be the first person smiling and applauding,” Sabzehzar said. “It wasn’t about who said it, it was about the idea.”

During the 2012 elections, Collett transformed his office to make space for Libertarian campaign efforts. His accounting firm’s operations were moved upstairs, while the ground floor of the building became a headquarters for Collett, Libertarian party presidential nominee Gary Johnson and Republican presidential primary candidate Ron Paul.

Collett won 4.2 percent of the vote in the congressional primary, finishing fifth among eight candidates. Democratic incumbent Henry Waxman later retook the seat against independent candidate Bill Bloomfield.

Collett intended to run for the 33rd district seat again in 2014, Sabzehzar said.

At the Luskin School, fellow students and faculty remembered Collett for his warmth and engagement in the classroom.

Brad Rowe, Collett’s classmate at the Luskin School for two years, said they bonded initially because both were returning to school after a long hiatus – Rowe was 41 at the time and Collett was 57.

“He really inspired a lot of us in the program to go after what we wanted,” Rowe said. Rowe added that Collett donated money to programs at Luskin during his time as a student.

Mark Kleiman, a professor at the Luskin School who specializes in drug abuse policy, was Collett’s faculty adviser for his master’s project – a two-quarter seminar where groups study policy problems and provide recommendations to real-world clients.

“He had very strong beliefs and he was doing public policy school in order to make his beliefs better felt in the world,” Kleiman said.

Even with his deep libertarian beliefs, Kleiman said, Collett kept an open mind and made a “moral effort to step outside his own perspective to look at the policy as objectively as possible.”

Collett is also remembered for his love of his three Great Pyrenees dogs.

“Recently, he said, someone had asked him: ‘If you were to die today, what would you want to be remembered for?’” Sabzehzar said, recalling an encounter Collett described to him shortly before his death.

“With the biggest grin on his face, he said, ‘I want to be the person that my dogs think I am.’”

Collett is survived by his daughter, twin brother and two sisters.

Services were held at Riviera United Methodist Church in Redondo Beach on Nov. 1. The family asks that memorial gifts be made out as a donation to the Humane Society or the Great Pyrenees Rescue Association.

Contributing reports from Jasmine Aquino, Bruin contributor.