Shumlin, Peter, 1956-

<p>Peter Shumlin was sworn in as governor of Vermont on January 6, 2011, and was sworn in for his second term on January 10, 2013. He was sworn in for his third consecutive term on January 8, 2015.</p>

<p>After graduating from college, Shumlin returned home to Vermont to take over the business that his parents created. Today, Putney Student Travel includes more than 50 academic and language programs and community service projects around the globe, giving high school students an opportunity to learn outside the classroom.</p>

<p>In 1980, Shumlin was elected to serve on the town’s select board and went on to be appointed to an empty seat in the Vermont House of Representatives in 1990. He subsequently spent 13 years in the state Senate, serving on the Rules Committee, the Finance Committee, the Transportation Committee and the Appropriations Committee.</p>

<p>Shumlin graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.</p>

<p>Peter Elliott Shumlin (born March 24, 1956) is an American politician from Vermont. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 81st Governor of Vermont from 2011 to 2017. He was first elected to the office in 2010, and was reelected to a second term in 2012. In 2014 he received a narrow plurality in his race for reelection, but did not attain the 50% threshold mandated by the Constitution of Vermont. In such cases the Vermont General Assembly elects the winner. The legislature almost always selects the candidate who received a plurality; this held true, and the General Assembly re-elected Shumlin to a third term by a vote of 110–69 in January 2015. In June 2015, Shumlin announced that he would not seek re-election in 2016. He has signed laws on physician-assisted suicide as well as the United States' first genetically modified food labeling requirement during his tenure as governor. He was chair of the Democratic Governors Association during his first two terms.</p>

<p>He was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1991 to 1993, and represented the Windham District in the Vermont Senate from 1993 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2011. He was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Vermont in 2002.</p>

<p>Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, Shumlin went to high school at Buxton School in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1979. Shumlin served on Selectboard for the town of Putney in the 1980s and helped found Landmark College, which was created to help people with learning disabilities gain a college education. Shumlin's father, George J. Shumlin, a third-generation American, was Jewish and descended from Russian immigrants; his mother, Kitty A. (Prins) Shumlin, was from The Hague in the Netherlands, and was Protestant.</p>

<p>Governor Peter Shumlin was the 81st governor of the state of Vermont from 2011 to 2017. Shumlin was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1990 to 1993, and served as State Senator for the Windham District from 1993 to 2003, and from 2007 to 2011. Shumlin served as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association during his first two terms.</p>

<p>Shumlin is a small business owner, public servant and father of two girls from Putney, Vermont. A committed entrepreneur, Shumlin is the longtime co-director, along with his brother, of Putney Student Travel, National Geographic, and New York Times Journeys’ Student Expeditions, a company that sends students on educational programs and service projects across the globe. He is also a partner in several real estate companies that provide housing and commercial space in Southeast Vermont.</p>

<p>His career in public service began more than 30 years ago when at the age of 24 he was elected to serve on the town’s select board. In 1990, Governor Madeleine Kunin appointed Shumlin to fill an empty seat in the Vermont House of Representatives, where he served for 3 years. He then served Windham County for 8 terms in the VT Senate and was elected by his colleagues to lead the Senate as President pro tem the majority of that time.</p>