Treasurer promotes value of education

WASHINGTON -- When Anna Escobedo Cabral was a young girl, she and her siblings and parents scoured the streets of Southern California searching for pieces of scrap metal that they could sell to buy food.

Some four decades later, giant metal printing presses stamp Cabral's name on every bill made by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and her signature passes through many Americans' hands every day.

As the U.S. treasurer, a position that dates back to the Continental Congress in 1775, Cabral, 47, is the main adviser to government agencies charged with producing the nation's money. She is also a key spokeswoman for the administration on financial literacy and the economy.

But while few may know who Cabral is, most Americans would find her neat, cursive signature on the lower left-hand side of many of the bills in their wallets. The signature of the treasurer, along with that of the Treasury secretary, appears on all paper U.S. currency.

"It's humbling," says Cabral, a mother of four grown children and a new grandmother who is also working toward a law degree. A friendly, down-to-earth woman, Cabral admits she can't stop herself from looking at all the bills in her wallet to see her name.

It's a long way from her upbringing in a poor family that spent time on welfare, sometimes standing in line to obtain staples such as peanut butter, dried eggs and dried milk left over from government food programs. She was the first high school graduate in her extended family.

"I come from a place where opportunity is a rare thing," Cabral says, sitting in her regal corner office in the U.S. Treasury building that has a view of the White House. "I know what a solid education can do for you and what it does to open doors."

Says Hector Flores, a friend who first met Cabral more than 10 years ago when she was working in the Senate: "She personifies the American dream. Someone who has seen every side of life ... and is striving to be the best she can be."

Rising from poverty

Cabral was born in San Bernardino, Calif., and was from the second generation of her family to be born in the USA. Three of her grandparents were born in Mexico, while her mom's father, a Native American, was born on a reservation in California.

Her parents held a variety of low-paying jobs. They both worked on farms when the kids were young; later, her dad washed sheets at a mental institution and drove a garbage truck, and her mom worked as a waitress.

When she was a teenager, Cabral's mother became ill and her dad, who injured his back when working as a chef, was told he would never walk again. The family had to collect government assistance and took apart abandoned appliances for scrap metal to sell.

As the eldest of five children, Cabral did what she could to help out, cleaning houses on the weekend. When she was 16, she decided that as a good student who was ahead on credits, she would graduate early and get a full-time job to help support her family.

But her math teacher thought that was a bad idea. Philip Lamm convinced Cabral she should go to college, and sold her parents on the idea, which was not an easy task, Cabral recalls.

Lamm filled out her applications and obtained scholarships. Cabral went to the University of California at Santa Cruz.

"She was just one of the outstanding ones," recalls Lamm, 85, who says Cabral was always an "efficient" student. "It was no question that this young lady, if given the opportunity, would go a long way."

Cabral credits Lamm with putting her on a different path than what she saw in her neighborhood, where kids dropped out of school, did drugs, got pregnant and, in some cases, died.

"There weren't a lot of Mr. Lamms in the neighborhood to help them out," she says.

Cabral met her husband, Victor Cabral, now a lawyer for NBC, when she was a sophomore. They were married between her sophomore and junior years, and she was 20 when their first child arrived. They had four children by the time Cabral was 25.

She left school after their first child was born, but returned after the third, attending U.C. Davis. After graduation, she went to graduate school at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, moving her six-member family to Boston.

Cabral's husband got a job at the Justice Department after she completed her graduate work. They moved to Washington, where she found a job working in the Senate. A few years later, she became deputy staff director for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Hatch says Cabral is "one of the greatest people I know," adding that she always is looking for ways to help people.

"Anna Cabral is the real thing," he says. "She's not in it for glory or politics. She's in it for what she can contribute."

But while she says she loved working for Hatch, the job was demanding -- she routinely worked seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. when the Senate was in session.

On the weekends, she'd bring her kids with her to work, and they would collect loose change under the vending machines in the marbled Senate office buildings. They'd routinely come up with $20 or $30, she says.

She decided to leave the Senate in 1999. "I realized my teenage children needed more than I could give them" and continue in the job, she says.

She became president of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, a non-profit group that works to increase Hispanic representation in companies. Later, she served as the director of the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Latino Initiatives.

In January 2004, Cabral received a call from the White House, asking if she would come interview for the treasurer's position.

"It was amazing," she says. After going through a series of interviews, background checks and a Senate hearing, she became treasurer in November 2004.

Pushing financial literacy

Cabral has made financial literacy a focus of her job, and travels three or four days a week around the country to promote smart management of money. She says she especially likes to speak to kids, believing the earlier you start, the better.

Children have an "intense desire to learn," Cabral says. "We go into the poorest neighborhoods, and it's always the same picture."

On a recent rainy Friday, Cabral spoke to a group of first-to-fourth graders in Arlington, Va., about financial literacy.

After being introduced, Cabral eased around the podium, bypassed the microphone and walked around the kids like a talk show host. Engaging the kids, she asked a lot of questions, such as what they want to be when they grow up, and asked for some examples of the difference between things people need and things they want.

She teaches about interest -- "If you give the bank money, and they hold onto it, they give you a little more money" -- and suggests they try saving some of their allowance.

The biggest hit of the day was when Cabral took out blown-up samples of money and showed them her signature. The kids begged her to bring the money to them so that they could see her signature up close.

Cabral remembered when she first had to sign her name for the engravers who would be creating the plates for the money. Every time she brought her hand to the page, it would shake.

"I couldn't do it," she says.

But she was finally able to sign when she thought about where she and her family had come from. Cabral says she never wants to forget her past and wants to help others in similar situations. Part of that help is by teaching people to be responsible with their money. She also tries to use herself as an example that people can, if given the right opportunity and support, thrive.

"People are resilient, and they find a way," she says.

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