Yet with all that responsibility for so many people, Knabe talks about individual constituents as if he were a small-town mayor who knew everyone’s father, uncle, sister, and brother. Especially close to his heart are the stroke patients and quadriplegics whose paintings line the walls of his office on the eighth floor of the County Hall of Administration on the corner of Temple and Grand in downtown Los Angeles.

The Long Beach skyline and at least a half dozen paintings of sailboats are all the creations of persons with disabilities who Knabe has come to know on a first-name basis through his involvement with Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center in Downey. Perhaps the most striking is a portrait of Knabe rendered in bright greens and blues that hangs in the reception area. It was made by Robert Thome, who was paralyzed as a teenager and learned to hold his brush in his mouth.

“I have a passion about Rancho,” says Knabe, “and that passion has expanded to the entire disabled community. I’m big on the arts and the impact that the arts have on children’s lives. I’m interested in seniors, too, but I do a lot of programs that are family-based, centered around children.”

Knabe is bright-eyed and animated as he speaks of his work. He frequently shifts position, moving in closer as his voice becomes more impassioned. Although he has been in politics for more than a quarter of a century, he does not fit the stereotype of a politician. He doesn’t speak in inauthentic, overly rehearsed sound bites; rather, he begins sentences in a rush of enthusiasm, then halfway through, gets excited about something else. He truly believes what he’s saying, and so a genuineness shines through. And he doesn’t dress like a politician in a dark blue suit, but rather sports a here-I-am pink dress shirt and matching tie.

From a young child on, Knabe’s focus has been on helping others. “It goes way back,” he says. “I’ve always been involved. Church youth groups are where I really started. And that expanded to high school service clubs and being involved in the YMCA. And now I’m the capital chair for a $14-million fundraiser for the greater Long Beach YMCA.”

Born in Rock Island, Ill., in 1943, Knabe graduated from Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, with a degree in business administration. He served in the Navy from 1967 to 1970 and married his wife, Julie, a Long Beach native, in 1968. Knabe was a business owner until 1980, when he was elected to the Cerritos City Council. Knabe served two terms as mayor of Cerritos. The Aug. 31, 1986, Cerritos air disaster occurred on his watch. An Aeromexico commercial airliner collided in mid-air with a single-engine plane, resulting in the flattening of four houses and fire damage to eight others. Eighty-two passengers, crew, and residents were killed in the disaster.

Knabe joined the staff of Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana in 1982, quickly advancing to his chief of staff. Knabe retired from the Cerritos City Council in 1988 and was elected L.A. County supervisor in November 1996.

“I consider myself one of the most fortunate people in America,” Knabe says. “I was just a kid from Illinois and to wind up in one of the best political jobs in America.”

Knabe’s strong sense of serving others wells up as his voice becomes stronger and his gaze more intense. “The essence of being elected is to serve the people,” he says, “and it may sound hokey, but it’s true. I don’t have to worry about a gubernatorial veto or a presidential veto or what the Republicans say or what the Democrats say. I’m here to help people. I have the ability in this job to truly make a difference.”

It’s always been very important to Knabe to think beyond downtown Los Angeles. “There are 87 cities in this county besides L.A.,” he says. “It would be very easy to keep all that money downtown and not push it out to the other cities.”

But Knabe is concerned about everything and everyone from catching debris passing through the L.A. River to working with the health department to helping the homeless shelter on Oregon Avenue to supporting Goodwill, the arts commission, the symphony, and the museum of art.

“In 99 percent of the cases, I’m matching what some community has already started,” says Knabe.

“The City of Long Beach has been very supportive of all the programs I’ve been involved in. And as long as that support is there, and it’s a mutual benefit, I’ll continue to offer my support. It’s not like I’m doing something by myself; it’s in conjunction with a community. If they have issues with anything from healthcare to roads to trees, we can handle the task together.”

One of Knabe’s best-known accomplishments is the Safe Surrender program, which allows women within 72 hours of giving birth to turn over their infants to any fire station or hospital, no questions asked. Since its implementation in 2001, the program has saved some 60 lives.

“I’ve had the opportunity to meet two of the babies who have been saved and to see the joy and the love on the faces of the families who are loving them,” Knabe says, his voice becoming subdued, but heavy with emotion. “Knowing that they would have been in a trash can without this program makes all the difference in the world.

“Long after I’m gone, long after I leave public life, those are the kind of things that I’ll look back and think, ‘Yeah, I made a difference.’”

Knabe’s warmth shines through when he speaks of his own family, too.

“Probably the neatest and most incredible tradition in our family is that when our oldest son, Curt, was born, the very first year, this lady gave my wife a Christmas ornament that was handmade and in the middle of it was Curt’s birth picture,” he says, voicing the same enthusiasm as he does for civic projects.

“From that moment on, each and every year, Julie has made a Christmas ornament with the most current picture of the boys. Starts out, Curt has two or three of his own, then Matt was born. It continues all the way through high school, college, and now we’ve got the granddaughters with their ornaments. This is the absolute history of our family. Every bulb on our tree is handmade by my wife and has the most current pictures of our children, their graduations, their weddings, now their children.

“People are just amazed when they see our tree,” continues Knabe, his eyes aglow, as if he’s standing before a holiday-bedecked fir as he speaks. “A huge tree—12, 13 feet. It’s a pain to set up, but it’s beautiful.”

Though six of Don and Julie’s grandparents hailed from Germany, they don’t have sauerbraten for their Christmas meal, but rather lasagna. “I don’t know how that started,” he quips.

Though the Knabes live in Cerritos, they enjoy spending time in Long Beach, “a big city with a small-town feel.” Only at this point does a bit of the cautious politician come out, though with characteristic Knabe humor and playfulness as he shies away from naming favorite Long Beach haunts. “If I start picking spots, I could get in trouble, huh!” he teases.

Instead, he opts for a safe answer: “We enjoy the water.”

In the next breath, however, he admits that his wife, who owns a public relation firm, and he do not have a lot of free time to do the things they’d like to do. One day, Knabe would like to learn to play the piano.

“Music had an incredible impact on my life,” he says. “It’s always been in my blood.”

At 8 years old, he was already playing the saxophone, and he made his first radio appearance at age 9 with “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” In junior high and high school, Knabe played in bands, and in college he played rock, big band, and jazz.

“At the time I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to use this to run for political office,’” he recalls. “But when I look back, music is responsible for all my personal self-esteem. I could play, I could talk, I could sing. A lot of people have said I’m quick-witted. Well, when you’re dealing with drunks at 2 o’clock in the morning, you get pretty quick-witted.

“It wasn’t a speech class or one particular teacher that had an impact. It was music. From the time I was 8 years old with a saxophone to today when I have 4,000 songs in my iPod.

“I enjoy music, I relax around music, and now I have the opportunity to give back, whether it’s music or the visual arts or drama.”

In every breath, Knabe projects the image of a man who has found the job that is perfectly suited to him. Though it appears that he loves the entire mix, the two most enjoyable aspects of his position are “one, just being out and around—speaking engagements, meeting with groups and organizations, seeing programs coming alive that I have supported.

“And secondly, to see where I’ve made a difference in someone’s life. It could be a health issue, it could be a welfare issue, it could be a food stamp issue, it could be a child care issue. You pick any letter between A and Z and that is part of my job—from the assessor’s office to zoning and points in between.

“The most rewarding part of my job is when someone, just out of the blue, drops me a note or sends me an email, or I’m out publicly and someone comes up and says, ‘You don’t know me, we’ve never met, but you saved my life. You got me into this program. You didn’t know who I was, but you helped me out.’”

One thing he does not want to do again is return to partisan politics. In his current position, “it doesn’t really make any difference whether you’re Republican, Democrat, independent, you have to fix the problem.”

“I’m forced to think regionally, the big picture. I don’t get isolated in some small district. I have to be as concerned about where the 57 crosses the 60 as the traffic coming out the Alameda Corridor. Los Angeles is the only place where elected officials want to become county supervisors, whereas in other parts of the state, county supervisors run for state assembly or Congress.

“Ninety percent of our job here is answering constituent calls and complaints. That’s our number one job here. I tell my staff I want them to be the Nordstrom’s of the eighth floor.”