Janet Rzewnicki

Rzewnicki (pronounced Rez-nicky)^[2] was born in Akron, Ohio, to Robert E. and Betty Ann Myers.^[3] She graduated from the University of Delaware in 1978, receiving the College of Business and Economics' Alumni Award of Excellence in 1992.^[4]

She worked as a certified public accountant and became politically active, initially as a Democrat who worked on Tom Carper's campaigns. In 1982, she switched parties and narrowly defeated New Castle County councilman Joseph Farley to become Delaware State Treasurer.^[2] She went on to serve four consecutive four-year terms as state treasurer, from 1983 to 1999.^[5]

Rzewnicki unsuccessfully challenged former governor Mike Castle in the Republican primary for Delaware's at-large seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1992, losing 54%-43%. She won the Republican nomination for governor in 1996 but lost the general election in a forty-point landslide to popular Democratic incumbent Governor Tom Carper.^[5] She was the first woman nominated for governor by a major party in Delaware. She went on to lose her 1998 reelection campaign for state treasurer to Democratic challenger and telecommunications executive Jack Markell.^[6]

After leaving office in 1999, she joined DuPont Direct Financial Holdings in 2001.^[6] She served as president of the National Association of State Treasurers in 1988–89.^[7]

Rzewnicki's husband, Victor, worked as a computer systems analyst for DuPont as of 1982.^[8]