Democratic candidate for Los Alamos County Assessor Jeff Casalina. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Jeff Casalina’s uncle was an appraiser and right-of-way agent in California, who in the 1960s worked with communities to put in mass transit and freeways. When Casalina graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in geography, his uncle was looking for someone to eventually take over the business because he wanted to retire.
“That was in 1983 and I just started working with him. I helped him with some right-of-way work, but I mostly did appraisals,” Casalina told the Los Alamos Reporter. “We were there for 14 years. When I got married, my wife and I wanted to live in Europe so we got jobs with the U.S. Navy in Naples, Italy.”
He said he started with Naval Facilities Engineering Command doing real estate contracting, and when the appraiser left, Casalina got his job.
“They sent me all over, from Cornwall to Bahrain,” Casalina said, “doing a wide variety of complex commercial, industrial and residential appraisals.”
When the four-year tour was up, he went on to do appraisal work in Wisconsin. During 2003-2004, he said he “smelled a rat” because valuations were going up and banks were lending money to anyone who asked.
Casalina said he quit appraisal work and went back to school to get a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science. He worked in Wisconsin until the “inclement weather” and job opportunities prompted him and his wife to move to Los Alamos, where he worked for the Department Energy, Environmental Management on facilities management and real property issues before retiring in 2018.
“I’d heard about the County Assessor’s position and thought I could probably do that. When I spoke with current Assessor George Chandler, and he indicated that he was only going to serve one term, I thought, ‘I’m retired and qualified and I would like to contribute to the community’,” Casalina said. “If I’m elected, I believe I will be the first actual appraiser to have that job. Assessors have their own licensing system. George (Chandler) earned that license, and I will too.”
He said he has always been a stickler for honesty, which is why he got out of the residential appraisal business when he did.
“I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice my integrity and state license for some mortgage company,” Casalina said.
He believes he has a lot of knowledge from over the years that he can apply to the Assessor’s position from working in so many aspects of the real estate world – leasing, appraisal and facilities management.
He noted that he enjoys the Los Alamos area and likes that there are so many smart and responsible people here.