This story was reported for San Diego News Network on July 28, 2009.
If there we’re ever a perfect definition for a “devoted spouse,” Katherine Faulconer may be it.
The wife of councilmember Kevin Faulconer for 10 years, what was meant to be an interview solely about her and her life with the elected official — turned into another interview about him with little tidbits about her.
With six-year-old Lauren clinging on to her, Faulconer sat down with me on the front porch of their Point Loma home to discuss her life with Kevin.
Faulconer, the daughter of a Navy Intelligence officer, spent her childhood years traveling the world. It wasn’t until she reached college-aged where should really settle down in California. Faulconer graduated from Menlo College in the Silcon Valley area with a degree focused on business hospitality. She would then venture down to SoCal to work for Planet Hollywood. After working for the business, Falconer realized the businesses in the Gaslamp District really needed some guidance when it came to marketing.
“A lot of the independent businesses in the Gaslamp didn’t have the means to have their own marketing department, per se,” Falconer says. “They were all independent and we’re just trying to get good food out on the table and didn’t understand the convention industry in general.”
Faulconer then started her business, Restuarant Events Inc., in 1996 — to fill up a necessary “niche.”
A year after the launch of Restaurant Events, Faulconer would meet Kevin at a Convention & Vistors Bureau mixer.
“I always tell people that my membership really paid off,” Faulconer told the San Diego Metropolitan.
Two years later, in 1999, the couple would be married. Did she expect to marry a politician?
“No,” she says laughing. “It’s fun though — you get the opportunity that you wouldn’t normally have, the opportunity to meet different people.”
After their son and daughter was born, Faulconer decided to scale back on her work hours to a part-time schedule and devote herself full-time to motherhood — she said the move is unrelated to Kevin’s job, as she always knew she wanted to be a full-time mother.
“I’ve had my business for 13 years and I have a great staff that I can rely on and it was a time for me to step back,” she says.
Although, she says, now that Kevin is an elected official — more time management is required of her and the family because of his commitments to the city and constituents.
“We can’t do anything spontaneously,” she says. “We even have to schedule ‘fun time’ too.”
In addition, she tells me about her great group of female friends in the neighborhood. Describing the relationships, as a circle of friends-type-group, she says they often rely on each other to help out when one “is in a pinch.”
“I have a lot of very close friends, great female friendships,” she tells me. “Every Wednesday night we get together with the kids. It’s a sort of a nice reprieve when Kevin isn’t there.”
But when Kevin is there, he certainly shares the issues of the city with Faulconer.
“There are a lot of issuess that are controversial, and Kevin bounces those off of me, so we talk about it a lot and re-talk about it a lot,” she says. “I’ll give my two cents.”
“Would you say you’re the woman behind the man,” I ask her.
“I would say that,” she says proudly.
Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network.