Howard Dean

HOWARD DEAN, M.D., was born in New York City and grew up in East Hampton, New York. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1971 and his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in 1978. Upon completing his residency at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, he went on to practice internal medicine in Shelburne, Vermont. He was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1983 to 1985. He was elected lieutenant governor of Vermont in 1986 and was reelected in 1988 and 1990. He became governor upon the death of Governor Richard A. Snelling on August 14, 1991. Elected to a full term in November 1992, he was reelected in November 1994, November 1996, November 1998, and November 2000. A past chairman of the National Governors Association, the Democratic Governors' Association, and the New England Governors' Conference, he also served on the National Education Goals Panel and was co-chair of NGA's Task Force on Health Care. Although Dean was unsuccessful in his bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, he went on to win the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee three months after the general election.