Alumni Profile: Vanessa Cortez Tanner

Vanessa Cortez Tanner grew up watching the news. For most kids, the news channel was a boring interlude parents put on between cartoons. Vanessa wasn’t like most kids. 

Throughout childhood and into college, Vanessa started learning about politics and developed a passion for policy. Now she serves as the Chief of Staff for the Texas House of Representatives.

“I’m fighting for policies and issues that I care about,” she said.

Vanessa’s mother immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was just 11 years old and started a life near the Gulf in Harlingen, Texas. As an only child, Vanessa was close to her parents and got all the attention from them. 

“It was never in the cards for me to leave the valley,” Vanessa said. “My parents really didn’t want me to go away to college”

Vanessa applied to Texas State and got in as a first generation college student. She studied hard and focused on academics, but eventually she started to get lonely.

“I was eating cereal alone in my dorm every night,” Vanessa said.

She decided to join student government, which is where she met lifelong friends and her now husband. After enrolling in the Housley Principled Leadership Seminar, she was inspired to run for student body president her senior year. 

Vanessa won and was elected president. She then went on to get involved in San Marcos campaigns, scored an internship at the Governor's office, and worked on a campaign for a supreme court justice. 

“It’s all about meeting people, networking, and seeing what issues affect people,” Vanessa said.

Her greatest accomplishment is passing a bill that reduces debt for the incarcerated and allows them to get a fresh start. Now, Vanessa lives and works in Austin and is expecting her first child soon.