Alison Clarkson has served in the Vermont Legislature since 2005.  She started in the House representing the towns of Plymouth, Reading and Woodstock.  And, for the past seven years she has been a member of the Vermont Senate – currently serving as the Majority Leader of the Senate.  She is one of three Windsor County District State Senators.  Alison serves on two Senate standing committees: as Vice-Chair of Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs, and as on Government Operations.  In addition, Alison serves as Chair of the Senate Sexual Harassment Panel, is a member of the Legislative Climate Solutions Caucus and the Women’s Caucus and serves on the State Workforce Development Board.  For a number of years she chaired the Legislative Council Committee.  During the comprehensive review of Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal Program, she served as the chair of the Legislature’s UVA Task Force. 

Before moving to Vermont, Alison was a theater producer in New York for 15 years – where she produced plays On, Off and Off-Off Broadway.   She is a founder of the New York Theatre Workshop, one of New York’s finest non-profit theater companies, and worked with the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.  In Vermont, Alison currently serves on the board of directors of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and has served as board member and chair of Woodstock’s Pentangle Council on the Arts, and served as a member of the board of the Vermont Arts Council.

Alison has been active in environmental protection, education, and civic organizations.  She served as the chair of the Billings Park Commission for many years, and is a former board member of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, Sustainable Woodstock, the Adirondack Council, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Park School of Buffalo.  In 2008 Alison was honoured to receive the ‘Outstanding Vermont Legislator Award’ from Vermont Natural Resources Council and the Vermont Farm Bureau’s ‘Stephanie Bourdeau Women in Agriculture Leadership Award’and in 2002 she was the Woodstock Rotary’s “Citizen of the Year”. 

She is married to Oliver Goodenough, professor at the Vermont Law School, and is the mother of two sons, Ward and William.