Darcy Burner
From dKosopedia
Category: Washington Democrats
Darcy Burner, a Democrat, ran for Washington state's 8th congressional district, but she lost to incumbent Dave Reichert (R).
Campaign website bio of Darcy Burner:
- Darcy's roots in Washington stretch back throughout her childhood, when she spent part of every summer in Thurston and Lewis counties visiting her uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandmother. These summers were complemented by school years in Alaska, Montana, and Nebraska, where her dad was stationed by the Air Force and worked after his retirement as a teacher.
- A motivated student, Darcy did well in school and read nearly every book in the local library. In elementary school she was given a Radio Shack computer with no software applications, so she wrote her own. Toying with the idea of becoming a pilot, she joined Civil Air Patrol, and spent her teen years taking advantage of its leadership training and national and international activities and was named Nebraska Wing, North Central Region, and National Cadet of the Year in 1989. A National Merit Scholar, Darcy was offered admission to Harvard, where she majored in computer science and economics. At Harvard Darcy had to work at least 20 hours per week to pay for school, and she built up her programming and software skills with high-tech firms in Cambridge.
- While she was at Harvard she became curious about her birth parents and began trying to find them. She found her birth mother in California. Driven by the necessity of earning more money to complete school and the desire to know her birth mother, she took a leave from Harvard and went to California for a year, where she got to know her birth mother's family and worked full-time for U.C. Berkeley.
- After returning to Harvard in 1992, she and Mike Burner, with whom she had kept up correspondence while in California, decided to marry. They were wed on March 20th, 1993 in Harvard Yard. While married and working, Darcy continued her schooling and graduated in 1996 after an additional medical leave because of the tragic loss of a daughter who died as an infant.
- After Darcy got her degree, she and Mike moved to California to work in the high tech industry. Darcy found herself focusing on changing companies' products and services to better respond to the real problems customers needed to solve. She greatly enjoyed the role of problem-solver.
- In the summer of 1998 Mike was offered a job at Microsoft, and they bought a house on Union Hill Road in Redmond. Darcy continued to work for the company she had been employed by in California until early 2000, when she went to work for Microsoft and became the lead product manager for Microsoft .NET, an initiative to change the way software was built. It was hugely successful and Darcy's reputation as a change agent and successful executive was enhanced.
- Eager to start a family, Darcy became pregnant and took maternity leave from Microsoft. Henry Burner was born in January of 2003 -- a bit premature, but healthy and beautiful!
- Upon Darcy's return to Microsoft she was elected to lead Hoppers, the Microsoft women's organization, and she became more active in her community and in state politics. She has left Microsoft to spend the time necessary to be elected to the United States Congress in the 8th District. [1]
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