Chris Saunders currently serves as the Federal Co-Chair of the Northern Border Regional Commission. He has held this position since March 2022 and is the fourth person to serve as Federal Co-Chair of the Commission since its creation by Congress in 2008. Saunders has guided NBRC through the deployment of historic levels of funding appropriated as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, overseen the development of new grant programs, and the creation of the Commission’s J-1 Visa Waiver program.
Prior to being nominated by President Biden and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he served for nearly two decades on the staff of United States Senator Patrick Leahy. Between 2011 and 2022, he served as a member of Senator Leahy’s Vermont office as a Field Representative, where he engaged with Vermont communities on community and economic development, transportation, and telecommunications policy. From 2002 to 2011, Saunders held a variety of legislative roles in the Senator’s Washington, D.C. office, focusing on housing, health care, education, and domestic appropriations.
This work included advising Leahy during the 2008 Farm Bill that led to the creation of the NBRC and two other peer Commissions. An avid hiker, skier, and angler, Saunders was raised in Middlebury, Vermont, attended Bowdoin College in Maine, and currently resides in Burlington, Vermont, with his wife and two children.