Jim Spering served as Mayor of Suisun City from 1986 to 2006 and was elected to the Solano County Board of Supervisors in June of 2006. During his two decades of public service, Mayor Spering also chaired the city's Redevelopment Agency, where he led a nationally recognized redevelopment program centered on the Old Town Waterfront and historic Main Street Shopping District. Using the latest in New Urbanism design philosophy, Suisun City has reinvigorated the waterfront, ending its isolation and reintegrating public uses with the city marina, historic rail depot, public promenade and harbor plaza.

Supervisor Spering serves on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission - the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, the fifth largest region in the nation. In this role, he spearheaded the creation of MTC's Transportation for Livable Communities, or "TLC" program, which is dedicated to making better connections between transportation investments and land use decisions. Spering's leadership also was instrumental in MTC's recent adoption of a pioneering transit-oriented development policy, which calls for dense housing around future transit hubs financed with regional discretionary funds.

Supervisor Spering was also instrumental in the formation of the Solano Transportation Authority, as well as the popular Amtrak Capitol Corridor intercity rail service linking Sacramento and the Bay Area. He is active in land use planning and currently a member of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and the Solano Water Authority. He attended New York Institution of Technology and is currently a regional District Administrator for Little League baseball.