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Rebecca is Minnesota's 18th State Auditor. She was elected in 2006 over her current opponent, former State Auditor Pat Anderson, with the support of former State Auditors of both parties, including Arne Carlson, Mark Dayton and Judi Dutcher.
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Rebecca discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in errors in reports issued by her predecessor and opponent.
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Rebecca was elected with a margin of victory of 11% - the largest upset over an incumbent state auditor since 1894, or in 112 years.
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Rebecca has a long list of solid accomplishments as State Auditor, including dramatically improving productivity and doing three times as many investigations as her opponent did while in office.
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Rebecca has been elected to the Executive Committee of the National State Auditors Association, and is in line to become its national president.
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Rebecca was awarded the National Excellence in Accountability Award from the nonpartisan National State Auditors Association.
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She was also a 2009 Honoree of the National Women's History Month, alongside Hillary Clinton, Sally Ride, Jane Goodall, and other "Women taking the lead to save our planet," the 2009 theme, for her environmental leadership.
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Rebecca received the 2010 Distinguished Service Award from the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association for her work supporting firefighters.
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Rebecca has been married for 22 years to her husband Shawn, a screewriter and national science advocate who wrote the movie House of Sand and Fog.
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Rebecca and Shawn live with their son in a renewable energy home they built with their own hands in 1995. It is passive solar, wind-powered, geothermal, and superinsulated. It is on a small farm where they have horses and farm hay.
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Rebecca Chaired the Human Resources committee of the National State Auditors Association where she worked on succession planning, training, and HR issues.
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Rebecca chairs the Collaborative Governance Council, the Investment Study Group, the Fire Relief Working Group and many other initiatives to improve efficiency and excellence.
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Rebecca earned a Certificate of Achievement in Pension Trustee Continuing Education from the NCPERS and a Certificate of Achievement in Public Plan Policy/Employee Pensions from the IFEBP.
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Rebecca was a State Representative from House District 52B, and prior to that she was on the Forest Lake Area School Board, and chaired an ad-hoc finance committee.
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Rebecca and Shawn cofounded, built, ran, and eventually sold a 50-employee business. Rebecca served as president.
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Rebecca has a Master's degree in Science Education from the U of M, and was a public school science teacher for five years.
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As a member of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency board, Rebecca successfully worked to include green building standards in the single family housing program, making affordable housing truly affordable, and reducing long-term costs to taxpayers.
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Rebecca has a history of bipartisan support and building bipartisan coalitions. She was the first person to bring together former finance commissioners John Gunyou, a republican under Carlson, and Jay Kiedrowski, a democrat under Perpich, to diagnose the problems with the state's structural budget deficit.
