Campaigning for Community

ill Cobb (MBA ’00) was born to be a leader — an Eagle Scout at the amazingly young age of 13, president of his senior class (even though it was his third high school in four years), a decorated career as an officer in the Coast Guard, president of his class at UNC Kenan-Flagler — Cobb’s life has been one of achievement and service.

Now Cobb is hoping to utilize his leadership skills on behalf of the people of Washington, D.C., his home since 2003. In his first campaign for public office, Cobb ran as an Independent in the November 2006 election for the Ward 6 seat on the District’s city council. Several of his UNC Kenan-Flagler classmates and area alumni worked with him on his campaign.

Friends and neighbors who knew of his passion for excellence encouraged Cobb to run. While improving D.C.’s schools was the initial impetus for his decision to pursue the office, Cobb also wanted to improve public safety, noting that D.C.’s police chief had declared a “crime emergency.” Cobb says, “The crime emergency is inextricably linked to an education emergency. We spend more money per student than anywhere else in the country, but our system is among the worst in the country.”

Cobb’s platform was to bring accountability and transparency — things he learned about in business school and continues to develop in his career as a management consultant — to the council.

UNC Kenan-Flagler played an important role in Cobb’s development. He maintains his ties to the school through his leadership in the UNC Kenan-Flagler D.C. Alumni Club. “I always look back on my time in Chapel Hill as two of the most fun, most inspiring years of my life,” Cobb says. “You couldn’t fit any more into two years than what I fit in. And the things that I did deepened my appreciation for service and gave me an understanding of the world around me, not just locally but internationally.” Cobb said that while at UNC he became committed to using his business skills to make a difference in the greater community.

“I think that you can jump in and try to make a difference, or you can sit around and complain about how things are,” he says. “I want to help improve things.”

After a tough campaign — largely run on “shoe leather,” as one reporter referred to Cobb’s grassroots, door-to-door approach — Cobb lost to the Democratic candidate Tommy Wells. Still, Cobb was happy with his showing (27 percent of the vote and second place in the polls) and with the campaign overall. “We forced a debate throughout the community about inclusiveness,” Cobb told a crowd of his supporters on election night. And as for his future role in the community? Cobb says that he and his wife, Pam (BSBA ’96, MAC ’00), plan “to remain very engaged in addressing many of Washington, D.C.’s local challenges.”