Ruth earned a bachelor’s degree in English and journalism in 1977 from Northern Arizona University and a master’s in public administration in 1983 from Arizona State University.

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From 1977 to 1980, she was a high school teacher in Page and Peoria, Arizona. She was a management assistant in the Phoenix Office of Transportation Services from 1984 to 1987, then deputy director of the city’s Community and Economic Development Department from 1987 to 1989. She was director of the Hispanic Network of the International City/County Management Association from 1989 to 1991. She then went into the private sector, first as a vice president of Bank of America in Phoenix from 1991 to 1996, then as community development manager at Norwest Mortgage in Phoenix from 1996 to 1998, when it became part of Wells Fargo. She was a community development fellow for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, also in Phoenix, from 1998 to 2000. She was district director for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. from 2000 to 2003.

 

Based in San Antonio, she was responsible for working with community development and housing nonprofits in four states. She returned to Phoenix in 2003, when she became program director of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., and in 2006, she became deputy city manager for cultural affairs. Before her stints as assistant manager in Brownsville and Oxnard, she was city manager in Eloy, Ariz., from 2010 to 2016. She joined Washington County in 2018 to take on the Deputy Administrator role until 2022 when she retired. She is currently enjoying her retirement and in her free time she supports the Latino Policy Council.