Senator Thomas Ira Chittenden grew up in South Burlington, Vermont. Thomas has a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Vermont and his Vermont family lineage traces back nine generations to Bethuel Chittenden, the brother of Vermont's first governor Thomas Chittenden.
He has been elected to the South Burlington City Council three times (2015, 2017, and 2020), currently serving in his third term. He has been twice elected by the faculty of the University of Vermont to serve as their Faculty Senate President and he served as the Chair and Vice Chair of the Green Mountain Transit Authority (2015–2020).
He was the 2019 UVM Grossman School of Business Faculty Member of the Year and in 2017 was awarded the University of Vermont President’s Distinguished Lecturer Award. For a short period of time he was a Volunteer Firefighter in the Town of Williston, Vermont and is a South Burlington Rotarian. He now lives in the Chittenden family home in South Burlington. He is the father of three children attending public school and is married to Kimberly Chittenden, who teaches in the Colchester School District.