Born and raised in Minnesota, Bob Olson grew up in a loving home with his mother and father, an Evangelical Free Church minister, a twin brother and a sister.

Bob worked to help pay his way through Bethel College and graduated with a major in psychology and minors in history and philosophy. After completing his studies at the University of Minnesota Law School he started his successful career as a tax, business and corporate attorney.

Bob has volunteered on numerous DFL campaigns since his law school days and has also served on the DFL State Central Committee.

He continues to practice law in downtown Minneapolis. He is also the majority owner and chairman of St. Stephen State Bank, which he bought in 1986, and has been a member of the St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce since 1992.

In 2004, he founded the American Sustainable Energy Council, a nonprofit that focuses on renewable energy policy and projects. Through ASEC he is working to bring a wind turbine manufacturing facility to southern Anoka County and another turbine facility and a hydrogen bus plant to St. Cloud.

His son, Blake, is 25 and attended the University of Minnesota. He has worked as a computer game designer in Iceland and with his father at St. Stephen State Bank before joining the campaign as a volunteer.