Early Career
Douglas was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1968, he graduated from East Longmeadow High School, East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, where he had been active in the College Republicans. At Middlebury College, Douglas was a Russian Studies major. Vermont maintains a sister-state relationship with Karelia, Russia, though this relationship was started in 1991 under the governorship of Madeline Kunin.
In November 1972, Douglas was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives, where he became the House Majority Leader during his third two-year term at the age of 25. He left the Vermont General Assembly in 1979, afterwards serving as a top aide to Governor Richard A. Snelling. Douglas was elected Secretary of State in November 1980, a post which he held until 1992. That year he sought election to the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by Democratic incumbent Patrick Leahy. In November 1994 he was elected Vermont State Treasurer, after receiving the endorsement of both major parties.
Read more about this topic: Jim Douglas
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)