Rachel’s Background

Rachel Zenzinger is the Colorado Senator from Arvada with a deep background in education and advocacy for public schools. She has worked as a Project Manager for Colorado Educator Voice Fellowship, a branch of Washington, D.C.-based America Achieves. She previously served as advisor to the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative program in the Colorado Department of Higher Education; and she worked for Regis University in the Master of Arts in Education department where she specialized in Teacher Leadership.

Since moving to Arvada in 2002, she has served the community in a variety of capacities, including as twice-elected member of the Arvada City Council, where she also filled the role as Mayor Pro Tem. She left the City Council to accept an appointment to the State Senate, where she served in the 2014 session.

Her staunch commitment and selfless engagement in public service are the direct result of her Western Slope upbringing in which her family members and friends preached the good of the community, and in which resources were always modest and sometimes lacking. At one point, she lived in a home without electricity. In a family of nine children, she quickly learned the importance of self-sufficiency and the value of hard work.

She took an early job in a hotel an hour from her home, and she also worked in a bookstore. She later helped put herself through school working on a landscaping crew at Regis University. She took on some back-breaking student loans to get through Regis, and she is still paying them off. No one is more personally acquainted with the consequences of steep college costs, and it’s one reason she has made affordability such a priority.

Her mother’s side of the family boasts a long line of teachers and commitment to education, and Rachel has carried on that legacy. She is a fifth-generation teacher, and has a secondary social studies teaching license. Rachel worked in the classroom primarily with high-risk youth.

Her father is a plumber and a pipefitter, and she recognizes the benefits that unionization has brought to hard-working, blue collar families. She believes that a healthy middle class is the backbone of the state and the nation.

She has served on numerous boards and committees such as Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) board; Denver Urban Drainage and Flood Control District board; Jefferson County Child & Youth Leadership Commission; the Ralston House Child Advocacy board; the Arvada Council for the Arts and Humanities at the Arvada Center; the Arvada Community Food Bank board; and the Transit Alliance Board of Directors.

She earned her graduate degree at Regis University with a Master of Arts in Adult Learning, Training & Development; and her Bachelor of Arts degree at Regis with an emphasis in education.

Rachel currently resides with her husband in Arvada where she is raising two children. In her spare time, she enjoys keeping up with the news; and she is an avid reader. She enjoys the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle, attending athletic events (especially the Colorado Rockies), and playing mahjong with members of her Kiwanis Club.