John Fairbanks joined the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) in June, 2001, after seven years in Washington, D.C. VHFA is Vermont’s largest funder of affordable housing, providing low-interest home mortgages for qualified homebuyers and loans and tax credits for affordable housing development. John supervises communications and public relations activities for the Agency, works in government relations and helps coordinate the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign, a public education effort organized by a group of 41 public- and private-sector groups to promote more affordable housing development in Vermont.

John is associated with Radiant Communications, a Washington, D.C.-based strategic communications consulting firm. He is also an adjunct professor at Castleton State College, teaching in the Communications Department.

Before joining VHFA, John worked as Communications Coordinator for U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI); as Press Secretary for U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders (I-VT); as Communications Director and Congressional Liaison for Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, a national issues campaign aimed at moving 15% of the nation’s military budget into education and child health care; and as Communications Director for Families USA, a national health care consumers’ advocacy organization.

John has also worked as a journalist, a law clerk, a fork lift driver, a tool and die maker, a bartender, a dance disc jockey and as a radio announcer.

John holds a bachelor of arts in English, minor in speech communications, from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. In 2005, he attended the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Fannie Mae Fellow.