Colleen McCarty

Colleen McCarty is a lifelong Tulsan, a prosecutor-trained attorney, a devoted wife and mother, and a proven fiscal conservative who believes the criminal justice system must be tough, efficient, and fully accountable to hardworking taxpayers.

A graduate of the University of Tulsa College of Law, Colleen earned top student honors in Professional Responsibility and Evidence Workshop (taught by Supreme Court Justice Dana Keuhn and Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Snow) and second top student honors in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure. During law school, she gained real-world experience in the Tulsa County Juvenile Division, then at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where serious drug trafficking and child exploitation cases were prosecuted, and later at the Wagoner County District Attorney’s Office, working on misdemeanors, felonies, fraud, and child neglect cases.

Colleen learned the value of hard work and personal responsibility early on—her first job was in the mailroom of her family’s fourth-generation Tulsa business, the iconic Bama Companies (known for Bama Pies). Over time, she took on increasing responsibilities, developing a practical, no-nonsense understanding of budgets, workplace accountability, and the high cost of mismanagement and waste.

Today, Colleen serves as Executive Director of Oklahoma Appleseed, a non-profit watchdog organization dedicated to rooting out government waste, corruption, and lack of transparency—holding public officials accountable regardless of party. Since founding Appleseed, she has transformed it from a modest $150,000 operation into a $1.5 million statewide force with a staff of 13 attorneys, researchers, and professionals fighting for fiscal responsibility and open government.