Steen was appointed by Governor Rick Perry on November 27, 2012, after Esperanza Andrade resigned four days earlier from the position that she had held for more than four years.

After just over a year in the position, Steen resigned and was succeeded on January 7, 2014, by another Perry appointee, Nandita Berry, an Indian native and naturalized American citizen from Houston.

The senior Steen was the last chairman of the San Antonio Good Government League and was active in the 1976 United States Bicentennial and in the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Her maternal grandfather, John A. Larkin, was a founder and the vice chairman of the Celanese Corporation of America, now based in Dallas.

Most recently while engaged in the private practice of law in San Antonio, Steen served under appointment of Governor Perry as a commissioner of the Texas Department of Public Safety.