Contra Costa HerStory

Marcella Colarich

Realtor  ·  Political Pioneer  ·  BART Candidate  ·  Soroptimist Woman of Distinction  ·  The Godmother

"She believed in women leaders before the world caught up — and her belief changed everything for those lucky enough to know her." — Sunne Wright McPeak, on her political godmother
⚠ Placeholder photo — replace with Marcella's portrait
1974 BART Board Candidate, Central Contra Costa
50+ Years Shaping This Community
∞ The Godmother's Unending Legacy
1 Political Godmother to a Generation

A Woman Ahead of Her Time

To understand Marcella Colarich, you have to understand the Contra Costa County she chose to call home — and what it meant, in the early 1970s, for a woman to decide that the world around her needed to change, and that she was the one to help change it.

Contra Costa County in the early 1970s was a place in motion. The suburbs east of Oakland and Berkeley were growing rapidly, filled with families building lives in communities like Pleasant Hill, Concord, and Walnut Creek. It was a place of ranch houses and school boards, of parent-teacher associations and neighborhood committees — and it was, like most of America at the time, a place where civic and political leadership was almost entirely the province of men.

Marcella Colarich looked at that landscape and saw something different. As a real estate broker with Cal First Realty on Laura Drive in Concord, she was already doing something remarkable: she was a woman building an independent professional practice in a field that, while more open to women than law or medicine, still required real tenacity. Every day she helped families find their first homes, their forever homes — she understood Contra Costa not as an abstraction but as a collection of lives, of kitchens and backyards and school districts that mattered.

That ground-level understanding of community — of what people actually needed, of what made a neighborhood work or fail — would become the foundation of everything she did in public life. She was not a theorist of change. She was a practitioner of it, one conversation, one relationship, one act of belief at a time.

The Era That Shaped Her

In 1973, Paula Schiff convened 30 women at a founding meeting that launched the Contra Costa chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus — the organization that would spend the next fifty years recruiting, training, and electing women to office across the county. Marcella was part of that world, part of that network, part of that generation of women who understood that the personal was political and the local was foundational. When the history of women's leadership in Contra Costa is told, it begins with women like Marcella — the ones who showed up first, who ran when nobody thought women should run, who believed before the evidence was in.

She ran for the BART Board of Directors, District 1 (Central Contra Costa County) in 1974 — the very first BART Board elections, at a moment when the transit system was brand new and its governance mattered enormously for how Contra Costa would grow. She was one of only a handful of women running for BART seats across the entire Bay Area, in a field of candidates that was overwhelmingly male. She ran because someone had to. That was always her logic: someone has to, so it might as well be someone who cares.

Leadership Journey

Marcella's path was not the path of the single elected official or the named executive. It was something rarer and in many ways more powerful: the path of the woman who makes other leaders possible. Four phases, one unbroken thread.

1

Roots in Real Estate, Heart in Community

As a professional broker in Contra Costa, Marcella was already doing community-building work before she ever ran for office. Every family she helped buy a home was an investment in the county she loved. She learned its neighborhoods from the inside out — its schools, its parks, its fault lines, its possibilities. That knowledge would inform everything that came after.

2

Stepping into the Arena

In 1974, she ran for the BART Board — one of the first opportunities in the region for women to seek regional governance at scale. Whether the race was won or lost, the act of running mattered: it put a woman's name on the ballot in Central Contra Costa and made the case, in the most direct possible way, that women belonged in the halls of power that shaped how people moved through their region.

3

Becoming the Godmother

The role Marcella would be most remembered for was the one that left the least public record: the mentor, the encourager, the strategic counselor who helped women around her see what they were capable of and then helped them get there. For Sunne Wright McPeak and others, she was the voice that said you can do this — and meant it, and backed it up with action.

4

Recognition, Community, Legacy

Honored by Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista as their Woman of Distinction — recognized by the organization dedicated to helping women and girls achieve social and economic equality — Marcella received in that award the community's acknowledgment of what so many already knew: that she had spent her life making this county a better place for everyone in it.

A Life in Full

From her real estate practice to her BART candidacy to her decades as the beating heart of a women's leadership network — Marcella Colarich's timeline is the story of a woman who showed up, every time, for as long as it took.

Early
1970s
CAREER

Cal First Realty — Building Contra Costa One Home at a Time

As principal broker of Cal First Realty on Laura Drive in Concord, Marcella established herself as a professional anchor in the community. Real estate in Contra Costa during the early 1970s was a front-row seat to the region's transformation — and Marcella used that seat to understand her community more deeply than most politicians ever would. Among the families she helped find their first home: the McPeaks. That transaction became a relationship, and that relationship became a legacy.

1973
MOVEMENT

The NWPC Founding Generation — Joining the Wave

When Paula Schiff convened the founding meeting of the Contra Costa chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus in July 1973, thirty women showed up to build something new. Marcella was part of that world — that network of women who understood that if they wanted to see women in office, they would have to build the infrastructure themselves. She was never a bystander in any room she entered.

1974
CAMPAIGN

BART Board Candidate — District 1, Central Contra Costa

In November 1974, Marcella ran for the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors, District 1 — representing Central Contra Costa County in one of the region's first BART Board elections. She was one of only a handful of women running for BART seats anywhere in the Bay Area, listed by both the San Francisco Bay Guardian and regional women's organizations as a candidate worthy of support. Win or lose, she made the case that women's voices belonged in the governance of the infrastructure that shaped how people lived and moved.

Mid-
1970s
CAMPAIGN

The Assembly District Race — Taking on the Establishment

Marcella also pursued a seat in the California State Assembly's 10th District — a candidacy documented in the Contra Costa Times, which reported on her participation in a forum on equal rights legislation. The act of running for Assembly in Contra Costa in the mid-1970s, as a woman, required an almost defiant conviction that the future would be different from the past. Marcella had that conviction in abundance.

1973–
1990s
MOVEMENT

The Godmother Years — Making Sunne McPeak Possible

The role that defined Marcella most fully was the one least visible in any public record: the political godmother. To Sunne Wright McPeak — who would go on to serve 15 years as Contra Costa County Supervisor and become a nationally recognized leader in regional planning and women's advancement — Marcella was the first person who believed, fully and practically, in her potential. She mentored, encouraged, strategized, and supported. She was the infrastructure of belief behind the visible career of someone the world would eventually come to know.

1986
RECOGNITION

Soroptimist International Founders Region Conference

Marcella represented Soroptimist International of Pleasant Hill at the 1986 Founders Region Conference — an annual gathering of women leaders from across Northern California. She appeared on the same program as Sunne McPeak, then Contra Costa County Supervisor, in a moment that captures something essential: these two women, mentor and protégée, were now peers, representing their community together on a regional stage. The mentorship had worked. The legacy was already alive.

Woman
of
Distinction
RECOGNITION

Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista — Woman of Distinction Award

Honored by Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista as their Woman of Distinction — "honored for making a difference in our community" — Marcella received the recognition of the organization dedicated to advancing women and girls socially and economically. Awards recognized by the city of Concord, the city of Pleasant Hill, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors, Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, Senator Mark DeSaulnier, and Congressman George Miller were presented at the luncheon. Her community had seen her work for decades. This was their way of saying so.

Stories of Impact

The fullest picture of Marcella Colarich lives not in public records but in the memories of the people whose lives she shaped. Two stories — one fully told, one waiting for Sunne's voice.

November 1974

The Woman Who Ran When Nobody Expected Her To

The year was 1974. BART had been running for barely two years, its gleaming trains threading through the East Bay with the promise of a new kind of regional future. The first elections for the BART Board of Directors were being held, and across the Bay Area, the overwhelming majority of candidates were men — businessmen, politicians, engineers, civic boosters.

In Central Contra Costa County — BART District 1 — Marcella Colarich put her name on the ballot. She was identified by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and by Bay Area women's political organizations as one of the women candidates deserving of support. She ran not because she expected an easy path, but because she understood something fundamental: that the governance of public transit was governance of daily life, and daily life in Contra Costa County deserved a woman's voice in its management.

The act of running, regardless of outcome, sent a message to every woman in Central Contra Costa who had ever thought about public office and talked herself out of it. It said: this is possible. Someone who looks like you is doing this. The door is open if you have the courage to walk through it.

In the same year, Marcella was also engaged with the California Assembly race in the 10th District, appearing at public forums to discuss equal rights legislation. She was, in the mid-1970s, one of the most politically active women in a county just beginning to understand what women's political leadership might look like.

Impact & Legacy

Marcella's candidacies in 1974 were among the earliest instances of women seeking elected office in Central Contra Costa County. She helped normalize the idea of women candidates a full decade before women's electoral success in the county became consistent — planting seeds that Sunne McPeak, Karen Mitchoff, and a generation of women leaders would harvest.

The McPeak Family's First Home

The Realtor Who Became a Godmother

It started with a real estate transaction. Marcella Colarich, principal broker of Cal First Realty in Concord, helped a young family named McPeak find and buy their first home in Contra Costa County. It was the kind of transaction she completed hundreds of times across her career — the paperwork, the negotiation, the keys handed over at closing, the particular joy of helping a family put down roots.

But this transaction was different. Because Marcella saw something in Sunne Wright McPeak that she recognized — the same quality she had always recognized in people capable of making a difference: intelligence, conviction, and a deep, unperformed care for the community around her. And Marcella was not a woman who saw potential and stayed quiet about it.

✏ Sunne's Memory — To Be Added

In Sunne's Own Words

This space is reserved for Sunne McPeak's personal recollection of Marcella's role in her life and career — the specific moments, the words of encouragement, what Marcella said that she still carries. When Sunne is ready to share, these words will complete this story in the only way it can truly be told: in her own voice.

Impact & Legacy

The relationship between Marcella and the McPeak family is the central thread of her legacy — a godmother relationship that began with a home purchase and grew into a decades-long bond of mentorship, encouragement, and shared commitment to making Contra Costa County a place where women led. It is, in miniature, the story of how change actually happens: one relationship, one act of belief, one home at a time.

A Life of Achievement

Marcella's contributions spanned electoral politics, professional excellence, civic leadership, and the irreplaceable work of mentorship — a record built not in press releases but in lives changed.

🗳️

Political Pioneer

As a BART Board candidate in 1974 and a participant in the 10th Assembly District race, Marcella was among the earliest women to seek elected office in Central Contra Costa County. She ran when almost no women ran, in races dominated by men, at a time when the very idea of women in regional governance was considered novel. Every woman who ran for office in Contra Costa in the decades that followed stood on ground she helped break.

🏡

Community Builder Through Real Estate

As principal broker of Cal First Realty in Concord, Marcella spent decades helping Contra Costa families find their homes — and in doing so, she built the community she would spend the rest of her life serving. She understood the county not as a set of political abstractions but as a living network of neighborhoods and families, and that ground-level knowledge made everything else she did more effective. Among the families she helped: the McPeaks, whose first home became the foundation of one of the county's most consequential political careers.

⭐

Soroptimist Woman of Distinction

Honored by Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista as their Woman of Distinction — an award presented with recognition from the city of Concord, the city of Pleasant Hill, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors, and state and federal elected officials including Senator DeSaulnier and Congressman George Miller. The award was the community's formal acknowledgment of what decades of quiet, consistent, impactful work had built. She made a difference for women, said the citation. She did, for her entire life.

💫

The Godmother's Gift

The title "political godmother" is not a formal designation — it is what people call you when you have spent years believing in their potential before they believed in it themselves, helping them find their way, opening doors, making introductions, offering the kind of honest encouragement that is rarer and more valuable than any official endorsement. Marcella was that for Sunne Wright McPeak and for others in her circle. The leaders she helped shape in turn shaped a county. Her legacy is not one career — it is many.

Legacy & Ripple Effects

Marcella passed from this world, but not from Sunne's dreams, not from the community's memory, and not from the lives of the leaders she helped make possible. Her ripples are still spreading.

🌊

She Made Sunne McPeak Possible

Sunne Wright McPeak — 15 years on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, nationally recognized leader in regional planning, affordable housing, and women's advancement — has called Marcella her political godmother. Behind every great career is someone who believed first. Marcella believed first. See Sunne's HerStory.

🗳️

She Ran When Nobody Expected It

Her 1974 BART candidacy and Assembly district involvement came at a moment when women candidates in Contra Costa were rare enough to be listed as a special category. She normalized the extraordinary — making it slightly easier for every woman who ran after her. The path to Karen Mitchoff, to Shanelle Scales-Preston, to Kristin Connelly, runs through women like Marcella.

🏘️

She Built This Community, Literally

Through Cal First Realty, Marcella helped hundreds of Contra Costa families put down roots — the most fundamental form of community investment. Real estate is not just commerce; it is the physical structure of civic life. She understood that, and she brought that understanding to everything she did beyond her office.

🌺

She Is Still Here

After she passed, Marcella continued to visit Sunne Wright McPeak in dreams — arriving with encouragement, with presence, with the particular warmth of someone who never stopped believing. This is not a small thing. It is, perhaps, the truest measure of a life well-lived: that the people you loved most still feel you with them, still hear your voice, still draw strength from your memory. Marcella Colarich never really left.

🔗

The Network She Helped Build

The women's political network in Contra Costa County — the NWPC chapter, the Soroptimist connections, the web of relationships that made women's electoral success possible — was built by many hands, and Marcella's were among them. Paula Schiff, Iris Mitgang, Marcella Colarich: the godmothers of a movement that changed a county.

✏️

More Stories to Come

Additional legacy items will be added here as Sunne and the community share their memories of Marcella's impact. This space is reserved for the stories only the people who knew her can tell.

"The Woman of Distinction Award winner honored for making a difference in our community is Marcella Colarich."

— Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista  ·  Women of Distinction Award Citation

✏ Marcella's Own Words — To Be Added

A Quote from Marcella Herself

This space is reserved for a verbatim quote from Marcella — something she said that Sunne or a family member has carried for years. A piece of wisdom, a phrase of encouragement, a sentence that captures who she was. When those words arrive, they will take their rightful place at the heart of this page.