About Rosemarie
I was born in Kremmling in the Colorado Rockies to a ranching and farming family. My parents, aunts and uncles taught me to respect and work with the land, to respect other people and to give back to the community. My mother died when I was eight years old and we moved first to Las Vegas, Nevada and then to Redwood City, California. I graduated from Sequoia High School. During the summers I worked at various jobs to earn money for college and volunteered in a local Head Start program.
I graduated from UC Riverside with a BA in psychology. While there, I took advantage of UC's Education Abroad Program and spent a year at the American University of Beirut. I had intended to pursue a career in clinical psychology, but instead decided to attend San Francisco State University where I obtained a Masters in Research and Development in the Social Sciences through the Education Department. While pursuing that degree, I began working as a research assistant in the Education Group at Stanford Research Institute (later called SRI International).
When the OPEC oil embargo occurred, I was offered a position in SRI's Long Range Planning Service where I could utilize what I had learned in Beirut to assist the Institute's business clients. I stayed in the Planning Service (later renamed the Business Intelligence Program) at SRI for 9 years, working my way up to Associate Program Manager and began work on my MBA at Golden Gate University.
While completing my MBA, Varian Associates offered me a position in their International business operations where I managed a department responsible for Varian's regulatory compliance program for about 16 years. I then worked for another 9 years at Space Systems/Loral as Licensing Manager.
Rosemarie married Steve Smallcombe in Menlo Park, California in 1985. After we married we bought a 40 foot sailboat which we lived on for 7 years, actively, and successfully, racing the boat in the San Francisco Bay.
Now in retirement, we have built a "green" home in Mariposa, California, near Yosemite National Park, and we are very active in a variety of local and regional organizations. We also hope to find the time to occasionally sail either in a dingy on the pond behind our house or on the boat that was once our home, now berthed in Monterey Bay. (Been sailing once in my 7 years as a Supervisor, and that was only because visiting family want to go! Too busy being a Supervisor.)
Thanks to the voters residing in District 1, I was elected as County Supervisor in June 2014. It’s been my honor and privilege to serve residents of District 1 and Mariposa County for the last seven years. During these seven years, I’ve relied heavily on my experience in private industry. During most of my professional career I was responsible for regulatory compliance for high tech companies. In that context, I worked extensively with federal agencies. I also worked with trade associations to influence language included in federal laws and drafting of regulations that implemented those laws. Now, I work with federal agencies as partners, attempting to work within their regulatory frameworks to address issues confronting residents of District 1 and Mariposa County. I also work with State agencies to achieve the same objectives.
My work in private industry impressed on me the importance of developing partnerships to achieve common goals. That mindset was critical in forming the local tree mortality task force and in a number of other initiatives I’ve pursued as County Supervisor for District 1.
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This is a question that was asked during the 2014 Campaign:
Q: What experience does Rosemarie have that will aid her in dealing with complex questions and unexpected situations.
A: Rosemarie has considerable experience in international business and knows a good deal about the interface between government and private industry. While managing an export licensing department for a high tech company, she was responsible for opening the market in Eastern Europe to U.S. scientific instruments and associated computers. This meant understanding the various technologies involved, and working to resolve the conflicting goals of the White House, and the U.S. departments of Commerce, State and Defense on this matter. Read the story about Rosemarie, Reagan and the Prince of Darkness that highlights her persistence and ability to deal with this very complex situation. In the same position she also opened the market in China to U.S. semiconductor equipment.
When another high tech company, along with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, was accused by an ambitious congressman of revealing rocket launch secrets to China, that company hired Rosemarie to help reestablish its credibility with the Department of Defense.
Rosemarie has a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from the University of California at Riverside, a Masters Degree in Education from San Francisco State University and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Golden Gate University. Rosemarie worked in a group that wrote business plans for major corporations such as British Petroleum and countries such as Saudi Arabia. She taught graduate courses in international trade. She has worked with Congressional legislators to change U.S. trade law.
Rosemarie has traveled extensively and was a member of one of the first groups of westerners to enter China after Nixon opened that door. She was kidnapped by smugglers in Syria while traveling in the Middle East and her plane flight to Rome was hijacked to Egypt. At this point in her life, staying home in Mariposa and using her broad experience in solving problems the county might encounter has a lot of appeal!