Deb Shafto Bio

Deb Shafto is the Green party candidate for Texas governor.

Official Website: http://electdebshafto.org/.

Bio from Website:

I was born in New Hampshire, raised in Brattleboro, Vt, graduated high school in Ashburnham, Mass. and moved to New York City. I worked for Blue Cross, got married, sold insurance, had my son, worked as a waitress, worked for a moving and storage company, got divorced.

I bought and ran my own company for 10 years. I worked for a treatment facility for disturbed adolescents, operated a group home for them then moved to Texas. I worked as a union organizer, married again, went to college, got involved with a local HISD school, went back to college for a Masters of Education and taught school. I retired last year.

So, I understand how it is to be a single parent, how it is to put children through college, how it is to run a small business and put in 12 to 15 hours a day. I know what it is like to do hard physical labor and how you feel at the end of a hard day. I know how it is to deal with difficult people and what sometimes terrible difficulties they face. I know what it is like to be a cog in a large machine, and I know what it is like to have the buck stop at your desk, to be the one responsible for what happens next. I also know that teaching is demanding, rewarding, critically important, grossly underpaid and over regulated by those whose knowledge is limited to their own experiences when they went to school.

I have two great families, mine and my husband’s. We have 4 children, 7 grand children. We have a new dog, 3 inside cats, 4 outside cats and innumerable birds who seem to like our cat food even more than the cats do. We have a pond in the back yard which we regularly stock with goldfish. The neighborhood raccoons seem to be grateful.