Tina Smith

Tina was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1958 and lived in a handful of states before attending Stanford University. To earn money for college, at age 19 she worked on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, where she was a labor union member. After college, she went to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where she met her husband Archie in line at the First Year BBQ. In 1984, excited by the possibility of starting their careers, Tina and Archie moved to what would become their permanent home: Minnesota.

Tina first worked at General Mills in Minnesota before starting her own small business and later worked as an executive at Planned Parenthood. As someone who believes that politics should be about improving people’s lives, it didn’t take long for her to become active in her community. She started by getting involved in local campaigns—first by taking her two young children in a stroller to talk with voters in apartment complexes, who were often ignored—and then went on to manage multiple political campaigns. Tina served as chief of staff to Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and following that, joined Mark Dayton’s campaign for governor. When he took office in 2011, there was only one person he imagined as his chief of staff: Tina Smith.