Napan Doris Gentry is hoping to buck trends and bring a conservative voice to Sacramento representing the 7th Assembly district, which includes Napa County.

Gentry is a former candidate for state office in Illinois who long has been involved in political and community matters in Napa, including organizing events for the Napa County Republican Women and raising funds for a variety of local charities and causes.

While it has been many years since a Republican held the Assembly seat representing Napa, in a way Gentry has been bucking trends her entire life.

She is a self-described runaway who lived on the streets of Hollywood, Mexico and Miami in her early teens with her sister. Gentry ran against Democrat Jim Rea for a seat in the Illinois legislature many years ago, but the incumbent Rea prevailed.

About 15 years ago, she moved to Napa. She runs a manufacturing business, Lift Mates Inc., which distributes a device to help people lift boxes.

While Gentry has long been involved in politics, her biggest impact likely has been providing a home for foster kids, especially foster teens. Over the years she estimates she’s cared for more than 100 foster children, taking them on trips to Disneyland and natural wonders like the Grand Canyon.

She said sometimes even a day trip to San Francisco can be an eye opener to a foster child.

“A lot of them have never left Napa County,” she said.

Gentry serves as an advocate for foster parents and foster children through the Foster Parent Association and Foster Care Advocates.

In some ways Gentry and her Democratic opponent, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, share a passion for reforms to the foster care system, a commitment to better education and a desire to fix the state’s economic problems.

Gentry said she wants to do all those things from a conservative perspective, relying on business partnerships with schools and making sure California businesses are free from burdensome regulation and taxes that she says have driven out industry.

Gentry tells the story of sending one of her foster kids to a private tutor who promised to bring the child up to grade level within a year.

If the tutor could do it, why couldn’t the schools, she asked, saying there are models for success at New Tech High School and Blue Oak School that other public institutions should be following.

Private grants and collaboration with schools should increase, making better use of a community that she said could help bolster school performance.

“I’m not for more money, I’m for more intelligence,” she said. “I want more creative use of the community that we live in to raise community involvement to work alongside the government.”

Gentry said to fix the state’s financial mess, the state needs to foster a more business-friendly atmosphere.

“The more difficult and complicated we make it for business the less business is here,” she said.

To that end she praised fellow Republican Steve Poizner, the state Insurance Commissioner, for his work going after worker’s compensation fraud.

“The more we bring the cost of doing business down in California the more business we have,” she said.

Gentry sees a disturbing trend in state government, with government costs rising while she believes private industry is either shrinking or not growing as fast.

“In a healthy community you have to have a proper balance of public and private workers,” she said. “You have to have more people producing goods in your community (than government workers).”

Gentry’s rival, Evans, is seeking re-election to her third term in the Assembly.

Evans became a member of the city of Santa Rosa Planning Commission in 1993, and was elected to her first term on the Santa Rosa City Council in 1996. In 2004, she beat Democratic rival Jim Leddy — now the director of the Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency — to earn the Democratic nomination for the 7th District Assembly seat, and was subsequently elected to office. She ran unchallenged for her second term.

Evans sponsored successful legislation to make it easier for young people emancipated from the foster care system to get access to federal government resources, and has expressed a desire to do more for foster youth while being mindful of budget constraints.

Evans said part of her plan for keeping the business community in California vibrant includes support for education.

Evans criticized the governor’s proposed cuts to public education, saying cutting schools “is a disinvestment that I think will impact our economy negatively for many years to come. One of the things I hear from businesses is that one of their main challenges is finding an educated workforce.”

As for taxes, Evans said increasing taxes has to be on the table if California is going to beat its multi-billion dollar deficit.

“We’re looking at a budget that is badly out of balance, which was only made worse by the issuance of some $15 billion in debt bonds and the roll back in the (vehicle license fee). It can’t be solved by cutting education and human services alone. There has to be a corresponding increase in revenues.”

Register Editor Bill Kisliuk contributed to this story.