Renee Reuter

“In 1993, my husband was stationed overseas in the ARMY. At the time, I was a young mother of two living in Colorado, which was near where my husband had been stationed before he left to serve in a hardship tour overseas in a location where family members cannot go. I was still in college, living far from my friends and family. While my husband was overseas, the government messed up his paycheck for 3 out of 4 consecutive months, leaving us – as you could imagine – short on money.” After sharing her struggles with a fellow classmate, including the fact that she was close to putting her college education on hold because of the situation, a professor, upon overhearing the conversation, asked if Renee could stay after class.
“It was then I heard – really for the first time – that you could reach out to your congressman to fix this type of problem. Believe it or not, I had never really been told that officials in public service are supposed to work for you.” After this, Renee Reuter looked up the names of her congressional elected officials, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and drove to the local ARMY post in Colorado, walked into the payroll office, and asked one last time for the situation to be addressed and fixed.
“I ended up getting the runaround yet again, and so that’s when I did it.” Renee handed the piece of paper to the gentleman – the paper with the names and phone numbers of her elected officials – and said, “Sir, please tell me which one of these I should call first.”
“I’ve never really seen someone’s face turn so white so quick. He asked me to sit down and in a matter of minutes he came back with a replacement check for an entire month of my husband’s salary. What had taken 20 hours of working both on my own and with my husband to fix this paycheck situation was resolved in a few minutes. I then realized the power you could have as an elected official in public service.”
But Renee Reuter wasn’t after some sense of power just for the sake of it. She wanted to actually help people. More specifically, she wanted to help people through public service, just as she had been helped. She believed that as a public servant, she could move struggling people to a place of hope and action. After that, Renee switched her major to Political Science. Upon finishing her undergraduate degree, Renee’s friend mentioned that she should learn how to read and understand the law before trying to write it, and so she went to law school, which led her into her professional career as a lawyer.
Renee Reuter worked in St. Louis, Missouri as Intellectual Property Counsel for Enterprise Holdings, Inc. for 18 years. While there, she led the intellectual property (IP) efforts to protect three major car rental brands in countries all around the world. Currently, Renee serves as Senior Counsel with Armstrong Teasdale’s Intellectual Property practice. 
In her spare time, Renee serves as a member of the Jefferson County Council, representing Council District 2. She has served in this elected public service position for nearly ten year. She has served as the Council Chair for five years and is currently serving her second year as Vice Chair of the County Council.
Renee earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in History-Political Science, with honors, from Colorado College. She also earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Saint Louis University School of Law. She became a member of the Missouri Bar in 2003.

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