Bob Lanier (politician)
Robert Clayton Lanier (March 10, 1925 – December 20, 2014) was an American businessman and politician. He served as mayor of the city of Houston, Texas, from 1992 to 1998. At the time of his death, he was Houston's oldest living mayor. Background. Born to working class parents in the refinery town of Baytown, Texas, in 1925, Lanier was a child of the Great Depression who was greatly influenced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies. Lanier worked while attending college and started his career as a "summa cum laude" graduate from the University of Texas Law School  in 1949. Initially employed by Baker & Botts law firm, Lanier practiced for a decade before switching gears to pursue a business career. During that business career he worked in banking and eventually established himself as a major Houston real estate developer, focusing mostly on subdivisions and apartments. Political career. In 1983, Governor Mark White appointed Lanier to the Texas Highway Commission, where he served as chairman until 1987. Lanier oversaw a $2.5 billion budget and directed the construction, maintenance and operation of the state's highway system. During this period, Lanier became an outspoken critic of a plan by  Houston's Mayor Kathy Whitmire and METRO, Houston’s public transit authority, to build a monorail system. In April 1988, as part of a compromise with rail advocates, Whitmire appointed Lanier as chairman of Metro. As chairman, Lanier accused Metro staff of hiding studies that showed ridership of a rail system would be less than originally predicted and not as economically viable. Lanier resigned in December 1989 after learning Whitmire would not reappoint him because of his lack of commitment to building a rail system. Lanier spent months searching for a politician who could knock the 5-term Mayor Whitmire  out of office but ultimately, he decided to do it himself. In the 1991 Houston Mayoral election, Lanier challenged Whitmire and won on the promise of putting more police on the streets, abandoning the METRO rail plan, and diverting transit funds into paving roads and sidewalks. Lanier was reelected in 1993 and 1995. Term limits prevented his candidacy in 1997, enacted in 1991 and reinforced in 1994 by a grass-roots citizen initiative spearheaded by the conservative political activist Clymer Wright. As mayor, he was affectionately referred to as "Mayor Bob." As mayor, Lanier’s actions were guided by three  core values: Achievements. Lanier's core values were translated into specific programs once he had taken office. By the time he had left office in 1997, he had achieved the following: The Bob Lanier Public Works Building in Houston is named after him. The Texas NAACP presented him its Texas Hero award and he also received the Hubert Humphrey Civil Rights Award. His work in transportation earned him the National Auto Dealers' Award. His work in finance brought a Bond Market Association Award. In 2000, he received the Leadership Houston Distinguished Service Award and the Urban Beautification Award from the  American Horticultural Society. In 2002 he was inducted into the Texas Transportation Institute's Hall of Honor at Texas A&M University. In August 2007 he was also inducted into the Houston Hall of Fame. Lanier was a founding member of Houston Community College, which he continued to support until the end of his life. Mayor Lanier also headed the corporation that oversaw construction of the city's new Hilton Americas – Houston, the city’s first convention center hotel – a project that started during his administration. Until his death in 2014, Lanier continued to manage his real estate properties, lectured several  times a year, oversaw the Lanier Public Policy Conferences at the University of Houston and participated in various civic, academic and political activities. Personal life. Lanier and his wife Elyse lived in Houston, as do their seven children and 11 grandchildren. On December 20, 2014, Lanier died at the age of 89 in Houston, Texas, from natural causes.