As mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999, he prided himself by adding more than 440 new teachers, building 32 new schools and renovating 43 others. He also implemented a back-to-basics curriculum to teach students the fundementals of learning. Also under the Bredesen Administration: the NFL franchise Houston Oilers, (now Tennessee Titans), were brought to Nashville and was furnished with a new stadium; a new arena was built (Gaylord Entertainment Center); a new library system was built and implemented.
Phil is a founding member of Nashville's Table, a non-profit group that collects overstocked and discarded food from local restaurants for the city's homeless population, and served on the Frist Center's board. Bredesen also founded the Land Trust for Tennessee, a non-profit organization that works to preserve open areas and family farms.
Bredesen along with wife Andrea Conte, moved to Nashville in 1975. While doing research at the public library, he drafted a business plan in the couple's small apartment that led to the creation of HealthAmerica Corp., a healthcare management company that eventually grew to more than 6,000 employees and traded stocks and bonds on the New York Stock Exchange. He sold the HealthAmerica Corp. in 1986.
Philip Bredesen grew up in Shortsville, a small agicultural community in upstate New York, and earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University. He and wife Andrea, have one son, Ben.