Darcy Renfro
Vice President and Director of STEM Initiatives
Darcy Renfro served as the Policy Advisor to Governor Janet Napolitano on economic development and higher education.
As an advisor to the Governor, Ms. Renfro was responsible for shaping policies that ensured Arizona’s current and future economic vitality. This included a variety of initiatives that addressed innovation, job creation, diversification of Arizona’s economic base through better linkages with higher education and industry with an emphasis in accelerating the core research and technology competencies to increase Arizona’s global competitiveness.
Ms. Renfro was a lead policy advisor for the Governor during her term as Chairman of the National Governor’s Association where she spearheaded an initiative to increase states’ innovation capacity called “Innovation America”. She has also served as the primary contact for science and technology related items including the development of Science Foundation Arizona and the Arizona Water Institute, a virtual collaboration among Arizona’s three research universities what will combine their water-related research and program assets in a super-center of information, research and technology development.
Ms. Renfro advanced to this role from her position as the Assistant Deputy Director for Workforce Development at the Arizona Department of Commerce, where her job was to draw the link between economic development, education and employment.
Prior to joining Commerce in 2003, Ms. Renfro practiced law in the areas of governmental relations, utility regulation and general litigation with the Phoenix office of Fennemore Craig. Before joining the firm, Ms. Renfro worked on staff for Senators Dennis DeConcini (AZ) and Howard Metzenbaum (OH) in the U.S. Senate.
Ms. Renfro is a native of Tucson and received both her undergraduate and juris doctorate from the University of Arizona.