Representative Carol Ode of Burlington, Chittenden District 6-1, is the granddaughter of immigrants.
She is serving her third term and-- after two terms on the House Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife Committee-- is now on the House Ways and Means Committee. She serves on LCAR, the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, and on the Lake Champlain Citizens Advisory Committee, which is part of the federal Lake Champlain Basin Program.
She is a Legislative Trustee on the University of Vermont's Board of Trustees.
Governor Howard Dean appointed her to the Vermont State Board of Education of which she was also chair. Carol served on the Burlington School Board for more than ten years, where her peers elected her chair for seven consecutive years. She was elected to represent Grand Isle and Chittenden counties on the Vermont School Boards Association board and served on the Regional Advisory Board for Chittenden County’s Technical Centers.
Her fellow Chittenden County lawyers elected her to the Vermont Bar Foundation board where she became its vice chair and collaborated with bank and credit union presidents to raise funds for Foundation grantees, including Vermont Legal Aid. She then consulted with the VBF and worked with the Access to Justice Coalition, raising funds for the Vermont Poverty Law Fellowship.
She was vice chair of The Vermont Journalism Trust board for VTDigger. She is currently on The Stern Center board. She has served on the Burlington Waterfront Board, the Lund Family Center Board, the UVM Alumni Council, and on a United Way allocations team.
Carol graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UVM with a B.A. in History. A former Vermont schoolteacher, she graduated from Cornell Law School. She is a 2017 Council of State Governments Henry Toll Fellow. In 2001, she received the YWCA’s Susan B. Anthony Leadership in Public Service Award, and in 2000 she received the Golden Apple Award from the Burlington School Board.