ABOUT CINDY
I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, in a poor, catholic, inner-city neighborhood. My family home was like living in a half-way house where the doors were never locked, troubled classmates, cousins, and friends found a safe place to stay, sometimes moving in for months/years, and dinner always started with a mountain of mashed potatoes. I’ve also lived in Chicago, Zurich, and now resides in Los Angeles where you can most often find me at the gym or in the ocean surfing.
A graduate of Kansas University Medical Center in respiratory therapy and biology, for years I worked in post-op, open-heart surgery.
My next career was by a chance meeting when I walked through a revolving door. A talent agent suggested I should try modeling, and with nothing to lose, I moved to Chicago to give it a shot. During my career as a model/actress, I was featured in hundreds of commercials, catalogs, ad campaigns, and magazines.
Looking for a distinctive career change, I decided to attack the commercial real estate scene in Chicago. By my third year, I’d put together one of the largest real estate transactions, a half-million square-foot credit card processing center. Los Angeles beckoned, and I joined a large real estate pension fund advisory group, TCW Realty Advisors, a subsidiary of Trust Company of the West. I was the youngest and only woman partner at the time and was named by The Los Angeles Business Journal, “One of the Top Ten Rising Stars,” and in two following years, one of the “One Hundred Most Influential People in Real Estate.”
In 2000, I married the love of my life, Jack Jones, and, for a while, attempted retirement which means I was just an unemployed type-A. I soon joined several charitable boards, did pro-bono graphic designs work, and organized dozens of nonprofit’s collateral materials into prosperous fundraising campaigns. Eventually, with my husband, we co-founded the Jack and Cindy Jones Youth Center. The center is a 9,000 square foot facility that houses the Boys and Girls Club of Mar Vista Gardens, a branch club managed by the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica. The club has over 600 kids signed up with approximately 140 attending daily.
Other fun facts. I am also an organ donor and organ recipient, a Level 2 instructor in Animal Flow and Iyengar yoga, rope flow, and I frequently give presentations on food, self-improvement, and nutrition. I enjoys many other hobbies that include surfing, doodle drawing, photography, graphic design, writing, and making barbecue sauce, (secret family recipe).
Most recently, I can add to my accomplishments, award-winning author of Doable: Little Decisions That Will Transform Your Life. Released in June 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, it was hard to get traction but did win a couple international awards and made the cover of Publisher’s Weekly.
By the time the pandemic let up, my husband health was in serious decline. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s ten years earlier, he had put up the good fight but the disease was winning and he passed peacefully with family in June of 2022. He was an amazing man with a big heart. I will forever cherish the fact I was his wife/partner for almost 25 years.
I live close to the rest of the family and see them often. my step-daughter Jennifer, and her husband Joey; step-son John, and his wife, Tara; and the grandkids, Sophia, Trevor, and Henry. I also have a pack of sixteen nieces and nephews and their spouses/kids, who most live in Kansas City, Missouri, and they all know aunt Cindy has a pool and will pay for their airline tickets to come visit. Oh yeah, and then there's Buddy, my poodle and emotional support pooch.