Director Sanborn was first elected to the SMUD Board of Directors in 2018 and represents Ward 7, which includes North Highlands, northern Arden Arcade, Carmichael, Antelope and Foothill Farms. She was re-elected without an opponent in 2022. SMUD’s Board of Directors elected Heidi Sanborn as President of the Board for 2023.

Sanborn is also the Founder of the National Stewardship Action Council and has served as its Executive Director since 2015. She is also the founding Director of the California Product Stewardship Council where she worked for 12 years. These nonprofits are dedicated to reducing waste, increasing recycling and advocating for an equitable, circular economy.  If you have ever recycled paint at a paint store or dropped off medicine at a medicine bin for safe disposal, you have experienced the results of Heid’s work.

She was later appointed by State Treasurer Fiona Ma to the Green Bond Market Development Committee in 2019, tasked with raising billions to build climate-friendly infrastructure. She was also appointed by CalEPA to serve on the Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling in June of 2020 and was elected Chair. The voluntary Commission submitted 34 policy recommendations to the California Legislature, many of which were passed in 2021 and 2022

Sanborn has a personal interest in going green. Sanborn and her husband have remodeled their current home to include solar panels and used the SMUD store to replace old lighting with LEDs and used SMUD rebates for a new heat-pump water heater and HVAC units. She is proud to be a SMUD Greenergy® customer.

Sanborn is also active in the community serving on the Board of the Children’s Receiving Home of Sacramento and is co-chair of the Giving Tree committee of the Kiwanis Club of Carmichael which recently planted 12 trees from the Sacramento Tree Foundation at Cameron Ranch Elementary School. She served as the President of the Sacramento Chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness in 2006-07-- spearheading the walk for mental health which she co-chaired with County Supervisors’ Rich Desmond and Patrick Kennedy in 2023, conducting police trainings and teaching family-to-family classes. She was also a Big Sister for six years to a local graduate from the Sacramento Unified School District. 

Over the past 16 years, Sanborn and her husband have also volunteered with Front Street Animal Shelter, fostering 67 dogs to date.

A native of Pennsylvania, Sanborn also lived in Delaware, Massachusetts, and Michigan before moving to California. Sanborn is a graduate of U.C. Davis where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science-Public Service. She also earned her master’s degree in Public Administration from University of Southern California. Heidi and her husband Brad Sanborn have lived in Sacramento for 33 years. Her father Dr. Clark Kahn III is also a member of the Kiwanis Club of Carmichael.