Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, Morgan earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1960. After Morgan earned her Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1978, she became an Assistant Vice President at Bank of America.
She was a teacher from 1960 to 1962. She left Bank of America in 1980 when she was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. After one term on the Board of Supervisors, Morgan was elected to the California State Senate in 1984 to represent the 11th District and re-elected in 1988 and 1992.
During her tenure in the Senate, she was Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Child Care and Development and Vice Chair of several other Senate committees.
In 1986, when Southern Pacific sought to withdraw from managing the Caltrain commuter rail system and consequently, shutting the system down, Morgan wrote the legislation that created the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board to save the Caltrain by enabling the new board to run the system. She resigned from the Senate effective August 17, 1993, to become President and Chief Executive Officer of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization composed of business, government, and education groups seeking to improve the Silicon Valley region"s economic growth and quality of life the following the early 1990s recession.
Later that year, she co-founded the Morgan Family Foundation, which awards grants to youth programs, education, and environmental conservation and was elected to a five-year term on the Stanford University Board of Trustees. In 1998, Morgan was elected to the Cornell University Board of Trustees and re-elected in 2002.
From 2008 to 2009, Morgan served on the State of California"s Commission on the 21st Century Economy.
James Morgan was Chief Executive Officer of Applied Materials from 1977 to 2003 and Chairman of the Applied Materials Board from 1987 to 2009. The Morgans have two adult children, Jeff and Mary.
Serving as the district office manager for Congressman Pete McCloskey in 1972, she served as an elected member of the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education from 1973 to 1978. She was also a member of the Education. Budget and Fiscal Review.
Transportation, Energy and Public Utilities.
And Revenue and Taxation Committees in the Senate.
