Herbert J. "Herb" Perez (born December 6, 1959) is a former US Olympian in taekwondo and a politician. He was a gold medalist in the

1992 Barcelona Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

Personal life

Perez was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to a Polish mother and a Puerto Rican father. He attended Rutgers Law School. He did his undergraduate degree at

William Paterson University William Paterson University, officially William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ), is a public university in Wayne, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Founded in 1855 and was named after American ju ...

and earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in sport organization management from the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

's program at the University of Lyon, France. Perez became a city councilman and mayor for Foster City, California, where he is the owner of Gold Medal Martial Arts. He has earned his eighth degree black belt in taekwondo. He served as chairman for the World Taekwondo Federation Education Committee and Vice Chair of the World Taekwondo Federation Technical Committee along with Steven Capener. Together they created and implemented the multi-tiered scoring system in place today along with the video review protocol.

Martial arts

Perez won bronze medals at both the

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

and 1991 World Taekwondo Championships, and won the 1987 World Cup Championships in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. He was involved in a scoring controversy as the head of the Taekwondo team at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

. He starred as himself (with the nickname "Olympus") on the 1995-1997 martial arts TV series ''

WMAC Masters ''WMAC Masters'' is an American live-action television show produced by Norman Grossfeld featuring choreographed martial arts fights. It was created and produced by 4Kids Productions (later known as 4Kids Entertainment) in conjunction with Ren ...

''. Herb Perez became a prominent critic of electronic scoring in the 2016 Summer Olympics taekwondo competition. His career and criticism were highlighted in a feature story in the September 2016 issue of '' Tae Kwon Do Life Magazine'' called "Herb Perez: Modern Renaissance Man".

Political career

Perez was elected to the council of the City of Foster City in 2011. He was re-elected for another four-year term on November 3, 2015. He briefly served as Mayor and Vice-Mayor before being recalled on March 3, 2020, in the California Primary elections. Retired Police Chief and longtime Foster City resident Jon Froomin was selected to replace Perez on the council until the term for his seat expires in November 2020.

References

Living people 1959 births American male taekwondo practitioners Sportspeople from New York City Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics William Paterson University alumni University of Lyon alumni Taekwondo practitioners at the 1992 Summer Olympics Mayors of places in California People from Foster City, California Pan American Games medalists in taekwondo Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States Pan American Games silver medalists for the United States Taekwondo practitioners at the 1987 Pan American Games Taekwondo practitioners at the 1991 Pan American Games Olympic gold medalists for the United States in taekwondo Medalists at the 1987 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1991 Pan American Games World Taekwondo Championships medalists {{US-Olympic-medalist-stub