Laura Sibilia is serving as an elected member of the Vermont House of Representatives for the Windham-2 District which includes the towns of Dover, Jamaica, Somerset, Stratton and Wardsboro. From 2015-2022 she was the elected representative of Windham – Bennington district which included the towns of Dover, Readsboro, Searsburg, Somerset, Stamford, Wardsboro and Whitingham. The 2022 census and reapportionment resulted in the Windham/Bennington District being eliminated.

Laura is one of three independents serving in the Vermont House, and was first elected in 2014. She currently serves as the Vice Chair of the House Environment and Energy Committee on the Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee for the Vermont Legislature, is a member of the House Ethics Panel and a Speaker appointee to the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Action Panel. Laura is the Co-Chair of the Rural Caucus and a founder and Co-Chair of the Vermont National Guard and Veterans Affairs Caucus. In 2021 she was appointed by Vermont’s Communications Union Districts to the Vermont Community Broadband Board.

Previously Laura has served on Gov. Phil Scott’s transition team as Co-Chair of the Leadership Advisory Committee after his election in November of 2016.  In the 2015/16 biennium she was a member of the Commerce and Economic Development Committee. From 2017-2022 she served as the Vice3 Chair of the House Energy and Technology Committee.

Major legislation Laura has provided leadership for includes: 2016 Creation of the Southern Vermont Economic Development Zone; 2018 inclusion of Pupil Weighting Study in Act 173; 2019 Act 79, An act related to Broadband Deployment, 2020 Vermont Global Warming Solutions Act; 2021 Acceleration of Vermont Community Broadband Act 71 and 2022 Clean Heat Standard and Municipal Fuel Switching.

She brings 20 + years of experience as an elected official, 15 years of targeted work experience in economic development, public policy advocacy, project development and management, fundraising and grant writing.

Laura lives in Dover with her husband TJ.  She has lived in Southern Vermont for 31 years, the last 20 in Dover.  She attended Champlain College in Burlington, VT and Massachusetts College for Liberal Arts in North Adams, MA and has earned a degree in Hotel Restaurant Management.

Laura was an elected member of the Dover, Vermont school board from 2003 – 2018, and served as its Vice Chair until the district became non operational as a result of an Act 46 merger with the Town of Wardsboro, Vermont. Those two towns merged school districts into the new River Valley School District, and Laura has served on the school district board since 2018.

Laura has served as the Director of Regional Economic Development Strategies for the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation since 2011.  From 2006-2011 she served as the Executive Director of the Mount Snow Valley Chamber of Commerce. 

During her tenure at the chamber, Laura brought public and private entities together for long term economic development planning, events creation and marketing.  Under her leadership, the chamber ran three successful public arts events, created a weekend long festival in partnership with Vermont Life Magazine for Vermont made wines, foods and artisans and helped lead creation of local and regional long term economic development strategies to diversify and grow industry and jobs.

Her involvement in developing these long term economic development strategies, beginning with a community based response to the bad winters of 2005-6 and 2006-7, led her to accept a newly created position at BDCC, the Windham Region’s economic development agency, as Economic Development Project Director.  In this role she directs the work of the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) Board which created the first ever federally recognized Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) for Southeastern Vermont.

T.S. Irene flooding in August of 2011 severely damaged many parts of Vermont including the Windham Region.  Laura helped provide on the ground leadership immediately after the flooding in Wilmington where town offices, police, fire and roads had been severely compromised. She lead work with other regional entities to develop a Windham Region Disaster Recovery plan, projects and funding to address the longer term economic impacts of the flooding. In 2012 Laura was awarded the “Volunteer Perseverance” Award by the US Small Business Administration for her disaster recovery efforts.

Laura co-founded the 501 (c)3 Deerfield Valley Troop Support Group in 2002.  This group was formed to connect families coping with combat deployments and to fund raise for morale and necessity care packages for service members.