Former United States Senator Olympia J. Snowe served in the U.S. Senate from 1995-2013 and as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979-1995. In the U.S. Senate, she served on the Finance Committee; Intelligence Committee; and Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. She was also Chair of the Small Business Committee.

Prior to her election to Congress, Senator Snowe served in the Maine Senate and the Maine House of Representatives. She was the first woman in American history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress. When first elected in 1978 at the age of 31, she was the youngest Republican woman and the first Greek-American woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Currently, Senator Snowe is Chair of the Board of Trustees of KFF and a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, where she also serves on its Board of Directors and President’s Council, as well as co-chairs its Commission on Political Reform. Previously, she was a member of the Board of Directors of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., Synchrony Financial, and Aetna, Inc.

In 2014, she founded the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute—a 501(c)(3) public charity to elevate the confidence and aspirations of high school girls in Maine—and is now Honorary Chair of its Board of Directors.

Senator Snowe also serves on a number of other non-profit boards and committees, including: the Board of Directors of the Commission on Presidential Debates; the Senior Advisory Committee of Harvard’s Institute of Politics; and the Board of Advisors of the National Institute for Civil Discourse.

Senator Snowe is a graduate of the University of Maine and has numerous honorary degrees, including from Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby Colleges in Maine; the University of Pennsylvania; and the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

She and her husband, former Maine Governor John R. McKernan Jr., reside in Falmouth, Maine and Washington, D.C.