“That is just the climate, something needs to change,” said Deana Froerer, economics instructor at Weber State University for over 20 years and now-candidate for House District 8 here in Utah.

Froerer’s campaign focused on an effort for clean air, improved standard of living and a push for top-performing schools. The campaign is grounded in an emphasis on families, support for businesses and finding common, nonpartisan ground to unite.

“It’s been the campaign I wanted to run,” she said. “I had 1400 doors I wanted to get to, and I think I have about 100 left.”

While Froerer has always known she wanted to serve the public, she hit a patch in the middle where her path wasn’t so clear.

Froerer graduated from Washburn University and University of Copenhagen in an exchange program with a bachelor’s degree in finance, economics and international business.

Froerer initially thought she wanted to go to law school, noting she had a life of public service embedded in her genes. Initially, she declared a political science major at Washburn.

Within her first year of college, she knew that her major was not the right fit for her, and that she had to switch her degree.

“I got bored,” she said.

She switched to a business degree after falling in love with the idea of learning something she knew nothing about.

“All I knew about stock was livestock,” she noted.

She encountered a life-changing professor in economics, and decided she wanted to work for the Federal Reserve. Froerer pursued job openings and research opportunities, but nothing came of it in the rural part of Kansas where she grew up.

She decided to go to California, where she had family, hoping for better luck with jobs. She was able to snag a short-term research assistant job that developed into a long term career.

It was at the Federal Reserve that she met her husband.

“I met this lovely person from Huntsville, Utah, also from an economics background,” she said.

They both decided to apply for the U.S. Fulbright Scholar program.

“We had this grand plan we would both apply to the same place, Hungary,” she said they still joke about it today because they both applied, and she received the award, but he did not.

Therefore, the logical next move for her was to get married, so she could bring him with her. They got married, and one week later, they moved to Hungary.

Returning with their first child after a year, they settled on Utah as a good place to raise a family, where Froerer also received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Utah.

She contributes a lot of her success to her support system from her family but specifically her husband.

“We are very compatibly happy,” she said. “We have good kids, you raise them right, do something good for the community, and at the end of the day, it’ll be all right.”

Froerer said she couldn’t be more proud of the campaign her and her team have run.

“Running for office is a huge undertaking,” Froerer said. “It is a short term business.”

Froerer said no matter the outcome of the election, she feels victorious in implanting the need to be be civically engaged in everyone her and her campaign has touched.

This is Froerer’s second time running for office. She ran for State Senate, although she said she knew it was a losing battle the first time. However, she realized elections needed to change, and someone needed to step up.