Robert C. Bobb brings more than 25 years of executive management experience in both the public and private sectors as the current City Administrator, Deputy Mayor, and the District of Columbia Homeland Security Advisor. Mr. Bobb was City Manager of Oakland, California from 1997 to 2003 and spent 11 years as the City Manager of Richmond, Virginia from 1986 to 1997. Before that, he served as City Manager of Santa Ana, California and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Currently, Mr. Bobb is the longest serving African-American City Manager in the country. He is a nationally recognized leader in the areas of public finance, public safety, and community-based government. His career of such wide-ranging achievement earned him the prestigious International City Management Association's (ICMA) L.P. Cookingham Award for Career Development and four ICMA Innovation Awards. In addition, he was awarded the National Forum of Black Public Administrators' (NFBPA) Marks of Excellence.

Mr. Bobb is the current President of the City of Oakland, California Black Chamber of Commerce, Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Fellow of the Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy at the College of William and Mary, Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, member of the ICMA, and former president of the NFBPA.

Additionally, Mr. Bobb has served on numerous boards and commissions, receiving gubernatorial appointments to such bodies as the Virginia State Crime Commission, Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute, and the Joint Sub-Committee to Study Cost Effective Measures.

Mr. Bobb recently represented the District government at the 2004 World Mega Cities Economic and Cultural Development Conference in Beijing, Shanghai, and Nantong, China. Mr. Bobb also served as a member of the US delegation to China in 1990, to examine urban problems in that country. Mr. Bobb frequently lectures on urban issues and was selected as a local government delegate to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002.

The January 2003 City Flight News Magazine honored Mr. Bobb with the 10 Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area Public Service Award. In 2002, he was presented with the 30 Years of Public Service Award by the International City/County Management Association. In September 1993, Mr. Bobb was recognized by City & State, a newspaper for state and local government officials, as the "Most Valuable Public Official in the Nation."

An avid sportsman, ardent supporter and patron on the arts, and champion for civil rights, Mr. Bobb makes time in his busy schedule to mentor urban youth and young professionals. Under his direction, several successful outreach programs have been designed and administered to foster urban youth in civic responsibility, educational achievement, and competitiveness in the employment market. Notably, more than 15 of Mr. Bobb's former employees have gone on to become city managers, county executives, public safety directors, deputy mayor, head of a public utility, and assistant city managers.

Mr. Bobb earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana, and a Master of Science in business from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He also completed the certificate program for Senior Executives in State and Local Governments at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as a member of the Executive Alumni Council.