After growing up in San Diego, Renee came north and earned her B.A. in History with honors from the University of California, Davis. She spent several years working for daily newspapers in Northern California before going back to school and earning her law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento where she graduated with Great Distinct and Order of the Coif.
Renee worked as Legal Counsel with the California Newspaper Publishers Association fighting for transparency in government and was an Adjunct Professor of Law at McGeorge School of Law for 14 years, teaching Mass Media Law and Employment Law. Her newspaper career also included serving as Corporate Counsel to McClatchy Publishing and General Counsel and Assistant to the Publisher to News & Review Publishing where she helped manage a multi-million-dollar annual budget.
After having four children in 20 months (including a set of triplets), Renee decided to stay closer to home, serving as General Counsel for her family’s small business, Professional Educational Services. She then moved to private practice in Roseville where her practice focused on representing businesses in employment, contract and tax matters. She worked on complex business transactions and tax issues and helped businesses manage through a variety of labor issues. While still involved with several of her family’s small businesses, Renee retired from the full-time practice of law in 2018 to focus on her true passion, public education. Renee’s other fiscal experience also includes having served as a member of the Board of Directors of Folsom Lake Community Bank. She was on the board at the time it was acquired by Central Valley Community Bank.
Renee has been serving the local community for over 20 years. She served for almost 10 years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Eureka Schools Foundation (which raises critical funds to support enrichment programs in the district), including a term as president. During her time on the ESF board, she helped raised millions of dollars in support of local public education. She has dedicated thousands of hours working alongside parents, teachers and school administration to put students first.
Renee was first elected to the Board of Trustees of the Eureka Union School District in 2012. In 2013, she was elected by her peers on neighboring school districts to the Delegate Assembly of the California School Boards Association (CSBA). CSBA is the nonprofit education association representing the elected officials who govern public school districts and county offices of education and advocate for effective policies that advance the education and well-being of the state’s nearly six million school-age children. She was re-elected to that post three times before being elected to the CSBA Board of Directors. With both of those positions, Renee focuses her time on improving public education at both the local and statewide level. She is a passionate advocate for public education, including ensuring adequate funding, serving the needs of all students and fighting for local control by locally elected school board members. Renee is a graduate of CSBA’s Master’s in Governance program.
In 2021, Renee was appointed by the California Senate to the Commission on State Mandates, a quasi-judicial body. The Commission’s statutory responsibilities include hearing and deciding are to hear and decide test claims of local agencies and school districts that allege the existence of reimbursable state-mandated programs; and if a test claim is approved, adopt parameters and guidelines for claiming reimbursement and prepare a statewide cost estimate.
Renee’s other focuses involve serving young people. In 2010, Renee was a co-founder of the Roseville Theater Arts Association, a non-profit youth community theater. She and her husband, Steve, were leaders of a grassroot effort to build Granite Community and Feist Park. While her children were younger, she coached a variety of youth sports, including t-ball, softball, basketball and cheerleading. For many years, she also served as “the voice” of the Granite Bay Jr. Grizzly Football & Cheer program, calling the home games from the press box. Along with her daughters, she was a member and volunteer with the National Charity League, under whose auspices she regularly cooked meals at the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen in Roseville.
Renee lives in Granite Bay with her husband Steve. Their four daughters are all graduates of the Eureka Union School District and Granite Bay High School.