Advisory Board of Governors
U.S. Senator Susan M. Collins
Susan Margaret Collins was born in the small northern Maine city of Caribou on December 7, 1952. Her family runs a fifth-generation lumber business, founded by her ancestors in 1844, and operated today by two of her brothers. Each of Senator Collins’ parents has served as Mayor of Caribou, and her father served Maine as a State Senator.
In 1975, she graduated with magna cum laude honors from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where she was also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa national academic society.
After working for 12 years on the Capitol Hill staff of Maine Senator William Cohen, she joined the cabinet of Maine Governor John McKernan in 1987 as Commissioner of Professional and Financial Regulation. After five years in that post, she then served as New England Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration from 1992 to 1993.
In December 1994, Senator Collins became the founding executive director of the Center for Family Business at Husson College in Bangor, Maine. She resigned in 1996 to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Cohen. She went on to win both a contested Republican primary and a four-way general election later that year. In 2002, Senator Collins was reelected with 59 percent of the general-election vote.
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