The Honorable Phil Bredesen
Governor of Tennessee
State Capitol Bldg
Nashville, TN 37219
Chair of the Board 

Tennessee's 48th governor, Phil Bredesen has built a reputation for effective leadership in business and government.  He was elected governor in 2002 on a platform of managing state government better, improving Tennessee's schools and fixing TennCare.

As mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999, his proudest accomplishment was to infuse nearly one-half billion new dollars into the local education system - adding more than 440 new teachers, building 32 new schools and renovating 43 others.  He also implemented a back-to-basics curriculum to teach students what they need to know.

Community involvement has been a central part of Bredesen's life.  He is a founding member of Nashville's Table, a non-profit group that collects overstocked and discarded food from local restaurants for the city's homeless population, and served on the Frist Center's board.  He also founded the Land Trust for Tennessee, a non-profit organization that works to preserve open space and traditional family farms.

Bredesen and his wife, Andrea Conte, moved to Nashville in 1975.  Doing research at the public library, he drafted a business plan in the couple's small apartment that led to the creation of HealthAmerica Corp., a healthcare management company that eventually grew to more than 6,000 employees and traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  He sold the company in 1986.

Philip Norman Bredesen grew up in Shortsville, a rural farming community in upstate New York, and earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University.  He and Andrea, have one son, Ben.