City Administrator

Rob Perry was appointed the City Administrator of Bradenton in July, 2021.

He started his career 33 years ago as an Assistant State Attorney in Pinellas County. After going west to New Mexico, his career included being the high-profile state prosecutor; the Deputy Director of the Department of Public Safety-New Mexico State Police; Director of the New Mexico Corrections Department, the state’s largest criminal justice agency; and then serving as Albuquerque’s City Attorney, where he managed the state’s largest municipal law office.

In 2011, Mr. Perry was appointed the Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Albuquerque and served for seven years. He successfully managed 6,000 employees and a more than billion-dollar operating budget. He oversaw nearly a billion-and-a-half dollars’ worth of municipal facilities, roadways, underground utilities, infrastructure, and economic development projects.

Mr. Perry is a graduate of the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. He has Juris Doctor and LL.M. law degrees from Whittier College School of Law and Emory University Law Center in Atlanta. He also earned a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in strategic growth from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

Mr. Perry has been married for 30-plus years, and he and his wife have two adult children.

MANAGING SMART GROWTH

Mr. Perry is responsible for the overall operations of the City. After expressing concern with “smart growth,” City leadership directed him to coordinate and manage the City’s downtown urban core growth, as well as large-scale private development and public development initiatives. He is committed to mitigating traffic congestion with infrastructure and coordination with private and public partners and State DOT to solve the traffic congestion problems of downtown.

Mr. Perry is the architect of the City’s Capital Development Plan (CDP), a series of core infrastructure municipal development facilities - a new modernized police station, City Hall, Public Works administration/engineering and development center, two new fire stations, a high-coastal-hazards emergency management public-safety center and over $50 million in underground sewer collection, water-treatment and stormwater improvement.

During his first two years, Mr. Perry reached out to the community, its business and local leaders, the City’s employees, and elected and appointed government officials in an attempt to listen, learn and appreciate the history, culture and needs of Bradenton. As a result, he has proposed major plans to address the City’s growth, change and future with strategic planning to address quality of life, public safety, and affordable housing for Bradenton in our present world and well into the future.

Mr. Perry's goal is to assist our elected leaders in creating the “Best Bradenton” we can be for many years into the future while maintaining strong fiscal structure.