Representative Golrang "Rey" Garofano was born in Iran and immigrated to Los Angeles, California in the mid-1980s to escape the Islamic regime and the Iran-Iraq War. Her career path took her to several large cities in the Northeast before she settled in Vermont in 2005. She has been a public servant for the State of Vermont since 2006, serving in various leadership roles supporting Vermonters, including the most vulnerable populations. Rey’s public service career has spanned human services, including health care, affordable housing, homelessness, and early childhood education. She currently works at the Child Development Division working on policies that ensure that the youngest Vermonters have access to high-quality early childhood education. Rey also works across the Department for Children and Families (DCF) to build efforts to advance equity and social justice to remove structural barriers and increase meaningful inclusion and representation across DCF. She has a deeply personal commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and has been actively engaged in multiple community projects over the past decade to promote racial equity and inclusion in and around Essex. Rey is an active participant on the Essex Westford School Board (EWSD) and serves on the board of Voices for Inclusion in Essex and Westford. Her long career as a public servant, her lived experience, and her deep understanding of state government provides her with the perspective needed to work hard on behalf of working families in Essex. Rey’s educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in business management from Champlain College complemented by a certificate in trauma-informed practice from the Child Welfare Partnership at UVM and a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace from the University of South Florida Muma College of Business.