Governor Phil Bredesen speaks at the 2008 Governor’s Conference on Economic and Community Development.
Phil Bredesen took office as Tennessee’s 48th governor on January 18, 2003, delivering on a promise to leave stale political debates behind and focus on achieving real results for families. In November 2006, he was re-elected in a landslide victory reportedly becoming the first governor in over a century to win all 95 counties in Tennessee.
Now, Bredesen begins his second term as Governor with a focus on raising high school and college graduation rates, boosting the economies of Tennessees smaller and mid-sized communities, strengthening public education at every level and promoting access to health care and healthier lifestyles for all citizens, especially young Tennesseans.
Before serving as Tennessee’s governor, Bredesen served as mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999, working with community leaders to chart a course that made Music City U.S.A. one of the best places in America to live, work and raise a family.
Before entering public service, Bredesen worked in the health care industry. Between research trips to the public library, he drafted a business plan at his kitchen table that led to the creation in 1980 of HealthAmerica Corp., a Nashville-based health care management company that eventually grew to more than 6,000 employees and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was sold in 1986.
Bredesen and his wife, First Lady Andrea Conte, are active members in the community, locally and statewide. He is a founding member of Nashville’s Table, a nonprofit group that collects discarded food from local restaurants and distributes it to the city’s homeless population. He also founded the Land Trust for Tennessee, a nonprofit organization that works statewide to preserve open space and traditional family farms.
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