—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Mayor Jerry L. Demings was sworn in on Dec. 4, 2018 as the 5th elected Mayor of Orange County and is the first African-American to serve in the role. He oversees more than 8,000 Orange County employees and a $4.4 billion budget as the County’s chief executive officer. He says that his goal is to make Orange County the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow†by creating a community culture of innovation, collaboration and inclusiveness.
Always a trailblazer, Mayor Demings became Orlando’s first African-American police chief in 1998 and was elected the first African-American Orange County Sheriff in 2008. He was re-elected in 2012 and again in 2016.
An Orlando native, Mayor Demings is married to former Orlando Police Chief Valdez B. Demings, who also made history as the first female police chief in Orlando. In November 2016, she was elected to the 115th Session of the United States Congress and was re-elected in 2018. Congresswoman Demings represents Florida Congressional District 10. They have three sons who are all graduates of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
A lifelong public servant, Mayor Demings is a graduate of Jones High School and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Florida State University and a master’s of business administration from Orlando College. He graduated magna cum laude.
He is a graduate of the 194th session of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Academy and studied at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Mayor Demings currently serves on several regional boards of directors, including the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, Central Florida Expressway Authority, Metroplan Orlando, Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority/Lynx, Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, Orange County Tourist Development Council, Orlando Economic Partnership and he is involved in numerous civic organizations. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega Fraternity and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity and is a steward at Saint Mark AME Church in Orlando. Mayor Demings has a passion for working with organizations that support children and volunteers with several non-profit agencies.
John "Buddy" Dyer is the 32nd and current mayor of Orlando, Florida, first elected in 2003. He is a member of the Florida Democratic Party. Previously he represented Orlando in the Florida State Senate for ten years, including three years when he was the Senate Democratic leader.
He was elected the 32nd mayor of Orlando on February 25, 2003, in a special election after the previous mayor, Glenda Hood, was appointed Florida's Secretary of State. He was re-elected in 2004 in a regular election, narrowly avoiding a runoff with challenger Ken Mulvaney. He won re-election again on January 29, 2008, receiving 61% of the vote over challenger Mulvaney. Buddy Dyer was once again re-elected mayor in November 2015 with 62.5% of the vote for his fourth full term in office.
In his years as mayor of Orlando, Buddy Dyer claims progress in realizing his vision for Orlando as a "world-class city." According to his re-election campaign materials, he led Orlando out of a financial crisis and made public safety a top priority. He attracted state-of-the-art health care facilities and created a regional medical area at Lake Nona, and has worked to improve all of the city's neighborhoods. During his term, Orlando has had three consecutive years of employment growth and a 2.2 percent decline in unemployment.
Dyer advocated a new performing arts center for Orlando and a new arena for the Orlando Magic. He worked with then-Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty to get approval for using US$1.1 billion of the county's Tourist Development Tax money, collected as a surcharge on hotel rooms, to fund construction of a new arena, a new performing arts center and large-scale renovations of the Citrus Bowl. The measure received final approvals on both the city and county levels in August 2007.
Since our first episode, I've been talking about these mayors choosing to pick up garbage. I believe that a man never stands so tall as when he bends down to pick up another person's garbage. How many U.S. politicians can you name who bend down to pick up other people's garbage? Yet how many American streets, waterways, and beaches do you see covered with garbage? It wasn't always this way. We are letting it happen on our watch. I hope Jerry and Buddy start a new trend among politicians. Get your hands dirty to make our nation and cities clean. If people we know don't do it, such as elected officials, we won't in general. But if they do, we will---which will make them leaders, which they want. Politicians, get votes by cleaning up your neighborhoods. Yourself. Show that doing so doesn't make you dirty. It makes our world clean. It enables people. Your constituents want your leadership. They want clean neighborhoods. I believe you'll get votes by bringing cleanliness to them. You'll make yourself more approachable. In this conversation you'll hear two people leading by example, with humility, at no cost, on something everyone wants for their community.
I talk a lot about the lack of leadership in the area of the environment. Many people talk about change but don't lead it. Many others judge but don't support, which leads people to hold back on trying. Well, the mayors of Orlando and Orange County Florida went out of their way and found me. Most guests I seek out. Instead, they took it on themselves to put themselves out there, risking judgment on an issue they don't have to. Most don't, I believe because it makes them feel exposed and vulnerable. But a top trait of effective leaders is that they like accountability. You don't have to make acting environmentally you main focus, but the start is to act, which they've done. From a leadership perspective for a public figure to step forward achieves more than whatever the outcome of his or her first step. If what they do seems hard, Jerry and Buddy's swimming upstream will make it easier so all who follow feel like they're swimming downstream. I intend to help them make personal action a trend among leaders, which will lead to group action.