Biographies, State Alliance Members
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The Honorable Phil Bredesen

Phil Bredesen (D) 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.

Bredesen's strong voter mandate stems, in part, from his commitment to accountability and open government. During his first year in office, Bredesen threw open the doors to administrative budget hearings, allowing taxpayers to see for the first time the decisions that are made on how their money is spent. The Governor also established the toughest ethics rules in the history of Tennessee's executive branch.

In year one, Bredesen worked with the General Assembly to manage the state through a fiscal crisis without raising taxes or cutting funding for education. By Bredesen's fourth year in office, Tennessee had passed four balanced budgets, received top rankings from national bond rating agencies and raised its Rainy Day Fund to a record high.

Among other accomplishments, Bredesen raised teacher pay above the Southeastern average and expanded the state's pilot Pre-K initiative into a program for four-year-olds across the state, led reform of Tennessee's workers' compensation system and invested in retraining programs to help laid-off employees develop new skills, launched the statewide war on methamphetamine abuse with the Governor's Meth-Free Tennessee initiative, founded the Heritage Conservation Trust Fund, and took control of TennCare.

Now, Bredesen begins his second term as Governor with a focus on raising high school and college graduation rates, boosting the economies of Tennessee's 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.

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.