John and Gwen first met during a leadership program last spring at the Marshall School of Business. Unlike your conventional duo, John and Gwen were matched up based on their strengths and weaknesses as leaders using a “strength finder”.
Objectively, their skill sets are supposed to complement each other.
“I would definitely consider myself an ideas guy,” John said, adding that Gwen is “the best at getting stuff done, having a timeline, having a skill, a visual.”
Today, the pair find themselves running for the 2025-26 USG Presidential Elections.
A junior studying business administration, John Breitfelder is running for USG president. His degree’s emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation has inspired his visions for the student government, an organization that he said “has been held back by bureaucracy for so many years.”
“I came here as a transfer. I had a little bit of an unconventional path here, but being a student here for two years now, I really understand what the school is so great at,” Breitfelder said. “But I’ve also noticed some things that we can kind of fix here.”
His running mate, Guinevere (Gwen) O’Beacain, is studying business administration. Like Breitfelder, USC serves as an important milestone for O’Beacain.
“I’m a first-generation college student. So my parents didn’t attend college, so me coming to college was my first experience even being on a campus,” the vice-presidential candidate said. “It kind of just hits you like a bus, like it hits you all at once. And it’s just super unexpected. It’s a lot to deal with that first, like, how do I get involved? Who do I talk to? Career-wise, what do I want to do?”
Now a sophomore, O’Beacain said she grew disheartened by the lack of representation offered to first-year students. Having held a leadership position since her role as Kindergarten Representative for her school’s associate student body (ASB), she feels as though freshmen need more of a voice in USG.
“We need open communication with students. We need to break down these barriers. This is the student representative organization,” O’Beacain said. “They’re representing all of us, so why don’t we have more of a say?”
The USG presidential-elects are running on a platform of three F’s: Flea, Food, and Future.
FLEA
FLEA is a conceptual “Trojan Marketplace” for students to buy and sell essentials like student football tickets, furniture, or merchandise in an effort to reduce waste.
“When I was moving out of my dorm last year, the whole lobby was just filled with furniture and items that people didn’t want to bring home; new items, good items, perfectly fine,” O’Beacain said. “So I was like, we could do something about this.”
O’Beacain hopes that FLEA becomes a “one-stop shop” for students to be able to buy and sell goods.
“Everyone’s texting in these group chats all the time, ‘Can you sell my football ticket’, or ‘Sell this or that,’” she said.”I’m sure there are so many students who [...] could use that or buy it for a discounted price instead of throwing it away.”
Breitfelder, who was hoping to study abroad this year, had his plans disrupted due to subleasing challenges. He hopes FLEA can serve as a solution to simplify similar student transactions.
“I couldn’t get a sublease. And for that reason, I couldn’t go abroad. And I’ve seen so many other people have this problem,” he said. “And we realize that there needed to be one dedicated marketplace for that.”
Food
The candidates also want to offer students free In-N-Out during finals week as part of a mental health initiative
“I used to be Mental Health Chair of my fraternity, and that’s something that really matters to me, to Gwen, to our whole campaign,” Breitfelder said. “If that’s something that’s possible and something that [USC Admin would] support under mental health, that’s something that we’d love to do.
They also hope to introduce “healthier options” to the USC dining halls.
“We do feel like we can find some better options for people. One of those things could be reducing seed oil use in the kitchens and maybe replacing it with something like butter or olive oil.”
In a statement available on the USG website, the candidates also outline hopes for EBT payments to be accepted at Seeds and the Tutor Center to make “it more convenient for students dealing with food insecurities to access meals conveniently on campus.”
Future
Beyond their plans to introduce a freshman student assembly, the candidates also hope to replicate UC Berkeley’s LinkedIn partnership, wherein students were given free access to LinkedIn premium. Breitfelder believes this will help students “find better career advancements.”
The pair also want to “preserve the future of the Daily Trojan and restore their funding,” citing that they are the “last West Coast student print news source”
The 112-year-old campus publication made headlines in December after its budget was cut by the university.
“They deserve print every day of the week,” O’Beacain said. “Not just Monday, Wednesday, Friday. [USC Admin] need to restore their funding to every day. We’re in full support of them.”
The candidates also want to incorporate a First-Generation Success and Transfer Student Mentorship Program designed to help students navigate networking opportunities, classes, clubs, and organizations. This plan also includes introducing a freshman assembly to offer more representation for first-year students.
The candidates also hope to restructure USG’s incentive structure to make it more project-focused. Breitfelder believes this will “[encourage]” student relationships with the student government.
“I want to measure everyone in USG by project success,” the presidential candidate said. “If the student body is your target demographic and your customers, how can you serve the student body? How can you serve your customers and provide something that is of value to them?”
“We really want to bridge the gap between student admin and USG because right now there’s such a big disconnect,” O’Beacain adds. “It just shows in the voting. Like, 20% of students vote. It’s way too low.”
Last year’s election results revealed a decrease in USC students voting, with only about 4,105 out of 22,000 undergraduate students casting ballots.
When asked if there was anything they would like voters to take away from their campaign, Breitfelder said he had been “waiting for this question.”
“We will make USG relevant to the students. We will work with admin. We will bring the entrepreneurial mindset to USG, and we will bring students together. We promise you that,” he said, adding “Vote for John and Gwen.”
Breitfelder and O’Beacain are among eight candidates running for this year’s USG elections. The two will take the stage for the Presidential/Vice Presidential Debate on Feb. 11.
The student voting period will take place between Feb 18-21, 2025.