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Ellen Kahler is the Executive Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF). Prior to joining the VSJF, Ellen was the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Center in Burlington (1990 to 2002). Her most well-known work through the Peace & Justice Center—the Vermont Job Gap Study and the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign—won statewide attention around the issue of basic family needs, livable wages, and under-employment.
She is a graduate of Bucknell University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with a Master of Public Administration.

Ellen has received numerous leadership awards including: The Con Hogan Award for Creative, Entrepreneurial & Community Leadership from the VT Community Foundation (2015), the Arthur Gibb Award for Individual Leadership from the VT Natural Resources Council (2015) and the Jan Eastman Excellence in Leadership Award from the Snelling Center for Government (2010). Ellen was also a recipient of a three year leadership development fellowship through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (1994-1997) and was a member of the Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute class of 1997.

Ellen currently serves on the Boards of the Working Lands Enterprise Fund, the Vermont Workforce Development Board, and Energy Action Network. She served on the Board of Directors for Red Tomato (2011-2016), Sustainable Forest Futures (2008-2012), the Clean Energy Development Fund (2009-2011), Vermont Works for Women (2007-2011), the Vermont Community Foundation (2001-2009), the Advisory Board of the VT-Small Business Development Center (2008-2009), on the Vermont Council on Rural Development’s Rural Vermont Energy Council (2006-2007) and Climate Economy Council (2016-2017) and as a Commissioner on the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (1998-2002).