Sandra Sue Bailey Gardebring was born June 15, 1947 in Bismarck, North Dakota. She received a B.A. from Luther College in 1969 and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1973. Her first job after graduation was as a reporter for the Bismark Tribune.

Her legal career began in 1973 as a Special Assistant Attorney General for Minnesota, working mostly on environmental litigation. In 1977 she served as Commissioner for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and initiated the legislation that became the first Superfund enacted by a State. Other issues she worked on included solid waste disposal, acid rain control, and air and water quality.

From 1978-1982 she served as Director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Enforcement Division. She supervised over 40 attorneys working on major environmental litigation at the federal level.

Governor Rudy Perpich appointed her in 1984 to head the Metropolitan Council, a major regional planning agency for the St. Paul/Minneapolis metro area. She focused on setting public policies for airports, airport noise, highways, mass transit systems, regional parks, housing, solid waste disposal, and sewage treatment plants. She also helped initiate staff structural changes in the Metropolitan Council, and was responsible for legislation to stop raw sewage flows into the Mississippi River and end the disposal of solid waste into landfills.

As Commissioner for the Department of Human Services (1986-1989), which was the largest department in the state with over 6,000 employees and an annual budget of over $2 billion, she began a number of human service programs and focused on improving the treatment of the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, and expanding self-sufficiency programs to return unemployment recipients back to work.

From 1989-1991 she served as a Judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals and wrote over 100 opinions and closed several hundred cases.

Governor Rudy Perpich appointed her to the Minnesota Supreme Court in January 1991. This made the Minnesota Supreme Court the only one in the country at that time to have a majority of women. In 1992 she ran a successful campaign for election to the Minnesota Supreme Court and served on the Supreme Court until she resigned in 1998.

During her service on the Minnesota Supreme Court she focused on environmental protection, welfare reform, reform for services to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, and abused, neglected, and poor children and youth. She became known for work with consumer rights and juvenile justice, leading the revision of juvenile court rules. She wrote 130 majority opinions, and 160 total opinions. The majority of her opinions focused on criminal justice.

In 1998 she became the Vice President of University Relations for the University of Minnesota. In 2004 she took a position at Cal Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, where she and her husband Paul Ogren had planned to retire.

Gardebring was born the daughter of Jack and Viola (Sauter) Bailey and married to former Minnesota State Representative Paul Ogren. They had two children. Sandra Sue Bailey Gardebring Ogren died July 20, 2010 in San Luis Obispo, California.