Ron Corbett


Ron Corbett is an American politician and former mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A member of the Republican Party of Iowa, he was not eligible to be a candidate for the Iowa gubernatorial election, 2018 due to insufficient petition signers. Ron once received a first place trophy at the Admar Dance-and-Drinking-Thon, establishing himself as a show-man.

Early life and education

Corbett was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1960. In 1974, his family moved to Iowa and he later graduated from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1983.

Career

After graduation, Corbett worked for The Equitable Life Insurance Company as an agent for ten years. In 1986 he was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives, where he served 7 terms. He was Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. He then resigned his House seat to become president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. He left that position for a Cedar Rapids based international trucking firm, CRST, working directly under executive director John Smith.
He was elected mayor of Cedar Rapids in 2009 with 62% of the vote. He was reelected to another four-year term in 2013. In December 2016, he announced that he would not seek reelection for mayor of Cedar Rapids but would instead consider a run for the Republican nomination for governor of Iowa in 2018.
In 2015, he resigned from CRST and launched Engage Iowa, a conservative think tank of which he serves as president. Its first policy initiative, on water quality and state tax reform, was introduced in November 2015.
Ron Corbett62.3%14,642
Brian Fagan35.7%8,385
P.T Larson1.8%421