Janis Marie Richards

Per her 2018 Green Party of Texas campaign profile, Richards graduated from the University of Illinois in 1971 with a BA in Soviet Studies (with honors); worked in the U.S. State Department and in Russian translation, secretarial, legal-secretarial, and paralegal roles; later pursued graduate study in Russian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA at the University of Houston; and was a Democratic political activist until she left the party in July 2016 to join the Green Party.