Raymond Thomas Rybak Jr. (born November 12, 1955) is an American politician, journalist, businessman, and activist who served as the
46th mayor of
Minneapolis from 2002 to 2014. In the 2001 election Rybak defeated incumbent
Sharon Sayles Belton by a margin of 65% to 35%, the widest margin of victory over an incumbent mayor in city history. He took office in January 2002, and won a second term in 2005 and a third in 2009. In late December 2012, he announced he would not run for another term and was going to be concentrating on his family. Rybak called being mayor his "dream job."
Before being elected mayor, Rybak worked in journalism, business and activism. The first mayor of a major U.S. city to endorse
Barack Obama's
2008 campaign for president, Rybak was one of five Vice Chairs of the
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
.
Background
Rybak grew up in Minneapolis, the son of Lorraine Ann (née Palmer) and Raymond Thomas Rybak, a pharmacist. He is partly of Czech descent. He graduated from
Breck School
Breck School is an independent college-preparatory preK–12 school in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. It was founded in 1886 and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school includes a ''Lower School'' consisting of g ...
in 1974 and from
Boston College
Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...
in 1978.
After returning to Minneapolis, in the 1970s and '80s Rybak worked as a journalist for the ''
Minneapolis Tribune
The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...
.'' He became managing editor of the ''Twin Cities Reader'', where he also launched ''
Q Monthly,'' a local gay and lesbian newspaper. For a few years, he headed
Internet Broadcasting Systems
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 tele ...
, which started as an online division of Minneapolis television station
WCCO and runs websites for many stations across the United States. Rybak did consulting work as an Internet strategist, and assisted with some projects with
Minnesota Public Radio and
Public Radio International
Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States.
PRI was one of the main providers of programm ...
.
He also acted as Development Director for Minneapolis's Downtown Council. During this time, Rybak worked as a community and political
activist
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
. In 1994, he was campaign manager for
Tony Bouza
Anthony V. Bouza (born 4 October 1928 in Ferrol, Spain) is a Spanish American retired police officer who served in the New York City Police Department and as police chief of the Minneapolis Police Department from 1980 to 1989.
Biography
Born o ...
, the former Minneapolis
chief of police who unsuccessfully sought the
DFL nomination for
Governor of Minnesota. Rybak was an early member of the group ROAR ("Residents Opposed to Airport Racket"), which campaigned for
noise mitigation projects in neighborhoods around the
Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. The group staged a memorable "
pajama
Pajamas (American English, US) or pyjamas (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth) (), sometimes colloquially shortened to PJs, jammies, jam-jams, or in South Asia night suits, are several related types of clothing worn as night ...
protest," where area residents wore their nighttime clothes at the airport to show that they were losing sleep because of airplane noise.
Rybak serves on the Board of Directors of
Nice Ride Minnesota
Nice Ride Minnesota is a seasonally operated nonprofit bicycle sharing system in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota based on the BIXI brand created by Public Bike System Company and first used in Montreal. Launched on June 10, 2010, it served ov ...
, a public bicycle sharing program.
Mayoralty
In 2001 Rybak defeated incumbent Mayor
Sharon Sayles Belton, receiving 57,739 votes (64.7%) to her 30,896 (34.6%).
Rybak's mayoralty focused mostly on reducing crime, creating jobs, building affordable housing, and balancing the city budget. He regularly attended public events and participated directly in discussions of city issues on his
Facebook page. He notably
crowd-surfed while mayor,
diving from the stage during a "Rock for Democracy" event at the Minneapolis club
First Avenue in July 2004.
In 2002, Rybak developed the City of Lakes Loppet, a 35-kilometer urban
cross-country ski race through
Theodore Wirth Park and across
Cedar Lake,
Lake of the Isles and
Lake Calhoun, which ends on the streets of the
Uptown
Uptown may refer to:
Neighborhoods or regions in several cities
United States
* Uptown, entertainment district east of Downtown and Midtown Albuquerque, New Mexico
* Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina
* Uptown, area surrounding the University of C ...
Minneapolis. The event attracts nearly 2,000 skiers. Rybak is a skier and has participated in races.
Rybak made many public appearances at rallies and protests. In April 2004 he spoke to a rally of striking
Metro Transit workers at the
Hennepin County Government Center plaza. Like many
Twin Cities politicians, he marched in the annual Twin Cities
Pride Parade
A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...
.
In his 2005 reelection campaign Rybak defeated challenger (and fellow
DFLer) Peter McLaughlin by nearly 25 percentage points, 61.5% to 36.7%. He celebrated with another crowd-surf.
In August 2007, after the collapse of the
I-35W Mississippi River bridge
The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (officially known as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River one-half mile (875 m) downstream from the Saint Anthony Falls in Minneap ...
, Rybak asked Governor
Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota state officials to implement its
replacement, ensuring that the new bridge would be capable of handling mass transit. Rybak pushed to ensure that future needs and policy considerations would not be ignored in the rush to build a replacement. The resulting plan accommodated a
light rail line. Rybak said, "we (the City) have a vision that we believe will be for a bridge that will serve us for many years to come." His role also involved authorizing
municipal consent of the final bridge replacement.
Rybak was listed as a finalist for the 2008
World Mayor award. In June 2008 Rybak was elected Vice President for Communications of the
National Conference of Democratic Mayors.
According to DNC Chair
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rybak was the first mayor of a large U.S. city to endorse
Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2007. Rybak campaigned for Obama and was active in the campaign's youth wing.
In January 2009, Rybak announced his intention to run for reelection to a third term.
In March 2009, Rybak proposed eliminating the Minneapolis Civil Rights Investigations Division, which was established in 1967 to investigate discriminatory practices as part of the city's Civil Rights Department.
The plan was met by community opposition, with both the DFL African American Caucus and the Minneapolis Urban League speaking out against it.
During his tenure as mayor, Rybak went through six civil rights directors and decreased the number of workers in the department.
On November 3, 2009, Rybak was elected to a third term, winning more than 73.6% of the first-place votes.
Rybak's office regularly used
social media, often to alert followers to vital city information. He used
Twitter too.
Rybak chose not to run for a fourth term. His mayoralty ended on January 2, 2014, when
Betsy Hodges was sworn in as the city's 47th mayor. After leaving office, Rybak became Executive Director of Generation Next, an organization seeking to help close the achievement gap for minority students.
He is now President and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation.
2010 gubernatorial campaign
On November 5, 2009, Rybak filed paperwork creating a campaign for governor of Minnesota. A month later, he officially announced his candidacy at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. Rybak won the straw poll on February 2, 2010, at Minnesota's precinct caucus events statewide.
On April 24, 2010, Rybak withdrew his name from consideration for the nomination at the DFL convention after six ballots. He endorsed
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and called on Democrats remaining in the race to withdraw and support her. Former U.S. Senator
Mark Dayton subsequently won the Democratic nomination and the general election that year.
Other work
Living Cities, a philanthropic collaborative of 22 foundations and financial institutions, reported that Rybak was hired in May 2014 as a senior advisor for municipal practice. Living Cities members include Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley.
In September 2011, Rybak became vice chairman of the
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
.
Personal life
Rybak lives in the city's
East Harriet
East Harriet is a neighborhood in the Southwest community in Minneapolis. Its boundaries are West 36th Street to the north, Lyndale Avenue South to the east, West 46th Street to the south, and Lake Harriet, Lakewood Cemetery, and William Berry P ...
neighborhood with his wife, Megan, and their children, Charlie and Grace.
Like their father, the Rybak children have attended
Breck School
Breck School is an independent college-preparatory preK–12 school in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. It was founded in 1886 and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school includes a ''Lower School'' consisting of g ...
, an Episcopal private school. Rybak's mother worked there during a difficult period in his childhood. Rybak was awarded Breck's Distinguished Alumnus award in 2002, and spoke at the school's commencement ceremony in 2015.
On January 4, 2014, Rybak was cross-country skiing when he started experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath. He was hospitalized and received an angioplasty and stents after it was determined he had had a heart attack. Heart problems run in his family.
Rybak has been honored with a star on the outside mural of the
Minneapolis nightclub
First Avenue.
The mural recognizes performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue.
Receiving a star "might be the most prestigious public honor an artist can receive in Minneapolis," according to journalist Steve Marsh.
Rybak is one of the few non-musicians to have a star on the mural.
Further reading
* Art Hughes (October 23, 2001)
Campaign Profile: R. T. Rybak. Minnesota Public Radio. Accessed December 5, 2004.
* Art Hughes (January 2, 2001)
R. T. Rybak becomes mayor.Minnesota Public Radio. Accessed December 5, 2004.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rybak, R. T.
1955 births
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American politicians
American businesspeople in the online media industry
American people of Czech descent
Boston College alumni
Businesspeople from Minneapolis
Candidates in the 2010 United States elections
Democratic National Committee people
Journalists from Minnesota
Living people
Mayors of Minneapolis
Minnesota Democrats