About

Dean Corren lives in Burlington and ran for Vermont Lieutenant Governor as the candidate of both the Progressive and Democratic Parties in 2014. He sought and achieved public financing under Vermont’s landmark campaign finance reform law, which allows candidates to qualify by gathering a large number of small contributions from Vermont voters, while accepting no contributions from corporations, PACs or other large contributors.

In 2015, after months of threats against him and Public Financing by the Vermont Attorney General, Corren filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the AG.  The AG then filed a state lawsuit against Corren alleging Public Financing violations.  Read more about this here.

Corren’s experience as a leader here in Vermont has included:

• Chief Technology Officer of Verdant Power, Inc. a sustainable energy company that develops underwater hydropower systems for the tidal, river, and ocean resource. [Read about Dean Corren’s career in renewable energy from this 2008 Middlebury Magazine profile.]
• Outreach Director for (then) Congressman Bernie Sanders, in a statewide policy and organizing role.
• Vermont House of Representatives, serving four terms, from 1993 to 2000 as a Progressive. He worked on numerous initiatives including:
  • Co-authoring Vermont’s first universal single-payer health care bill.
  • Sponsoring Vermont’s first equal marriage rights bill, and introduced it with tri-partisan sponsorship.
  • Working to cut property taxes by increasing state support for education funding.
  • As a member of the House Commerce Committee, working for the interests of consumers and small business.
  • Participating in the creation of VT’s energy efficiency utility.
  • Fighting for EITC and AABD for working families and seniors.
  • Arguing for limits as the administration privatized state workers’ jobs.
  • Improving local government ethics laws.
  • On the House Special Committee on Restructuring the Electric Utility Industry, Corren was instrumental in stopping a costly Wall Street-designed deregulation plan.

• Member and chair of the Burlington Electric Commission which governs the state’s largest public electric utility.
  • assembled a broad consensus for major investment in local efficiency.
  • arranged the early (2002) cessation of power from Vermont Yankee.
• Vermont Public Interest Research Group trustee for 16 years.
• BA (Philosophy) Middlebury College, and MS (Energy) New York University.

Corren is married to Cindy Wolkin, a nurse case manager at UVM Medical Center, and together they have four children – a son, three daughters, and a grand-daughter.