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PHOTOS BY STATE OF TENN. PHOTO SERVICES |
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Tennessee First Lady Andrea Conte
shares her ambitions and the successes she has
achieved during her husband, Governor Phil Bredesen’s,
first term as governor. |
Andrea Conte—the name itself stirs up mystery, fitting
for the exotic lead of a dramatic novel.
And in reality, Andrea Conte is a heroine, from small town
roots coming forth to free children from oppression and to
capture history, before it may be lost, garnering support
along the way from the masses who greet her as friend.
While not native to the state she has called home for the
past 30 years, she has dedicated herself to its citizens,
determined to make life better for every child—children
who, bolstered in education and parental involvement, will
make better adults, parents, and leaders for the future.
Diminutive, dynamic, demure—Andrea Conte is the wife of
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen.
Both are transplants to the proud Southern state, whose
heritage earned the nickname "The Volunteer State", owing to
the devotion and valor of its citizens to America. Bredesen
was born in Oceanport, New Jersey, the son of Philip Norman
Bredesen, Sr. and Norma Walborn Bredesen, and grew up in his
mother's hometown of Shortsville, a rural farming community
in upstate New York with a population of 1,100. Andrea was
born and raised in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a town
of less than 7,000.
"It was a place where people knew each other; it was a place
where people left their doors unlocked," she says, laughing
softly at the memory of a gentler era. "I don't remember
locking a door or car; in fact, people left their keys in
the car if they parked on the street."
She was the second of four children born to parents Louis
and Rosalie, including brothers Nicholas Conte of Daytona
Beach, Florida, and Stephen Conte of Great Barrington, and
sister Carol Rosalie, who died July 24 this year in a
motorcycle accident near Tonopah, Nevada.
In Great Barrington, kids stayed busy playing sports and
other extracurricular activities, often working after school
and summers as well, Andrea recalls.
"We had school dances, and we had parties downtown," she
continues, smiling, pretty without makeup, her features soft
beneath a casual coif of becoming silvery gray. "We'd take
over a parking lot of a grocery store and have block
dances."
She played intramural basketball and was assistant manager
and then manager of the girls' basketball team. She was also
a majorette in the high school band and a cheerleader. Well
rounded, she was on the student council and participated in
other activities as well. But when the time came to consider
a career, her options were limited.
"As I began thinking about a career," she begins, explaining
her decision to go into nursing, "that was when girls were
not strongly encouraged to go into many fields... it was
pretty much nurses, teachers and secretaries."
Yet the choice served her well, becoming the basis for
greater employment opportunities and philanthropic
endeavors, as well as creating the setting in which she
would eventually meet her husband.
She attended a diploma school of nursing in Springfield,
then earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from the
University of Washington at Seattle, and later obtained a
Master of Business Administration from Tennessee State
University in Nashville.
Her first employment was as a "visiting nurse" for the city
of Boston, a position that took her into the homes of people
with various public health issues and often those of
pregnant women. She taught them healthy habits and, after
their babies were born, helped answer questions about
parenting and child care.
"Some of the social situations were tough," she says. "I
made sure they had the resources they needed."
Later, she worked with Boston City Hospital, again in a
position with some community health aspects, performing
research in a cardiovascular program that followed patients
with heart disease.
Andrea and former Tennessee first ladies gathered in
April to host the "Luncheon on the Lawn" to raise
funds for renovation and preservation of the Executive
Residence. Pictured are (standing) Honey (Lamar)
Alexander, Andrea Conte, Hortense (Prentice) Cooper,
Martha (Don) Sundquist; and (seated) Betty (Ray)
Blanton and Betty (Winfield) Dunn. Hortense Cooper
married Governor Cooper after he left office in 1945,
and is the mother of Congressman Jim Cooper. |
Computer applications, that were gaining prominence in
health care in the early 1970s, caught Andrea's interest and
in 1972 she began working with Searle Medidata, a subsidiary
of Searle Drug Company, providing training in an interface
between hospital and clinic personnel and computer experts,
neither of which had familiarity with the other's field of
expertise.
Meanwhile, Bredesen had earned a degree in physics from
Harvard University and began his career as a computer
programmer, also working for Searle Medidata, where he had
developed a computer application for use in hospitals.
Within a few days of Andrea's employment, she and Phil
became acquainted.
"We were working in the same general area, in different
aspects, and had occasion to meet and to talk and work on
different projects," she says. "He's intellectually very
interesting and we just hit it off."
She laughs upon recalling her first impression of her
husband, with whom she was married in 1974: "The lining of
his suit was hanging out," she says, conjuring an image of
an original computer nerd that is countered by a second
revelation.
"We had gone through some old clothes a few years ago and I
remember Ben just cracking up because he couldn't believe
(his dad) wore bell bottoms," she grins, concerning their
son and only child. "He never wore beads though."
Ben, born in 1980 in Tennessee, graduated in 2003 with a computer science
degree and now works for a software engineering company
designing computer programs.
"He's a great young man," says his mom, comfortable in her
son's success.
Regarding her decision to retain her maiden name, she says,
"I couldn't find a good reason to give it up and he
certainly wasn't going to give his up. I had used it
throughout my career, so I kept it... At the time it was a
little unusual, I guess, but it hasn't really been a problem
and, as the years go by, more and more women are using their
maiden names."
Andrea's work in Boston had taken a turn to the
international arena when she began a free-lance enterprise
in London, working on a project to computerize Saudi
Arabia's newly built King Faisel Hospital. There, she made
contacts with people affiliated with Hospital Corporation of
America (HCA) and joined the company as director of nursing
management systems, a position that in 1975 took her to
Tennessee, where her husband gained employment with Hospital
Affiliates, an HCA competitor.
A budding entrepreneur, Bredesen conducted research, using
the public library, that in 1980 led to the creation of
HealthAmerica Corp. The healthcare management company had
humble beginnings, its business plan drafted at the kitchen
table of the couple's small apartment. Nonetheless, it grew
to more than 6,000 employees and was traded on the New York
Stock Exchange. He sold the company in 1986.
Andrea, meanwhile, had begun doing consulting work as
manager of nurse consultant services (southeast region) for
the former accounting firm of Ernst and Young (later Ernst
and Whinney) after her tenure with HCA ended in 1978. Her
role was one of helping hospitals become more efficient as
well as conducting feasibility studies for companies seeking
to acquire a hospital. She continued working until shortly
before Ben's birth, and afterwards for a time.
"As a consultant, you're only good if you come from out of
town," she says. "I traveled a lot and that got to be a real
problem with a young child, so I decided to find something
close to home."
Ready for a new challenge and with an interest in cooking
that continues into the present (along with gardening,
skiing, hiking, climbing, painting, and reading) she founded
Conte Philip, a gourmet cooking shop. In addition to selling
retail cookware and "related gadgets", Conte Philip offered
a cooking school frequented by members of the community who
enjoyed classes taught by visiting chefs demonstrating their
talents.
"I enjoyed it very much; it was a lot of fun," Andrea
smiles. Started in 1983, the shop remained in business for
eight years.
That's when, in 1991, Bredesen was elected mayor of
Nashville. Andrea blossomed in her new role as the capital
city's leading lady.
"I found it really interesting and was able to concentrate
on things that had interested me for a long time," she says,
referring to her volunteer work at Caldwell Early Childhood
Center, a public school located in the inner city.
She pauses, palm raised, to ensure credit is delivered to
all whose efforts benefited the school and its children: "We
were able to get health initiatives going there with the
help of a lot of generous people, like St. Thomas Hospital,"
she says, referring as well to "lots of people working
together from the housing authority, private individuals,
and people in community," a group Andrea defines as "the
Parent Club".
Andrea Conte and husband, Phil Bredesen.
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The group initiated the St. Thomas Hospital-sponsored
nurse-practitioner clinic at the center as well as the
United Way Success By Six program, a coalition of business,
govern-ment and non-profit ventures dedicated to ensuring
children a good foundation by preparing them to begin school
ready to do well.
Adults also reaped the rewards of the Parent Club's
creativity. With the school as their base of operations, the
group launched a public-private partnership between local
government and the Dollar General Corporation, now part of
the YWCA's job readiness and career development services, to
train adults at a learning center that is essentially a
Dollar General Store dedicated to training. Graduates of the
program enter the workforce at large, putting their skills
to work while strengthening their families as well as their
roles in society.
Andrea in 1993 also began an awareness group, "You Have the
Power... know how to use it", that takes a positive approach
to topics like child abuse, elder abuse and domestic abuse.
The mission of the organization, with members that include
concerned citizens, survivors of crime, and representatives
of social service agencies, is to raise awareness about
violent crimes, with the ultimate goal of prevention.
One testimony on the YHTP Web site (yhtp.org) reads, "I
needed to turn my negative energy into something
positive—something that might be used to help other
families avoid the pain caused by violence. YHTP strives to
find solutions to reduce violent crime, to provide resources
for those touched by violent crime, and to involve the
community in those efforts. We all have the power to make a
difference; we just need to know how to use the power that
is available to us!"
The sentiment echoes Andrea's own resolve, herself victim of
a heinous crime played out in 1988 when she was attacked in
the parking lot of her store. Forced into a car by her
assailant, she fought valiantly and eventually escaped,
though battered and bruised, with one cheekbone and hand
broken. Only later was her attacker arrested when, a year
later, he murdered a young woman in Nashville's Percy Warner
Park. He is now serving a life sentence in prison.
Andrea's comments reflect the wisdom of her knowledge that
responses to violence are as varied as the scenarios in
which they occur: "People never really know what they can do
until they are found with a crisis situation, or, in many
cases, people come through because they do whatever they
think they can do to get out of a bad situation."
Not content with her status as victim, Andrea chose instead
to become a conqueror, not only for herself but for
thousands of others whose lives have been touched by her
initiatives. She assisted in establishing a domestic
violence response unit in the city's Metro Police
Department, a model replicated in other police departments
across the country and which has been credited with helping
to drastically reduce Nashville's domestic murder rate.
She explains the unit focuses on domestic violence because,
as opposed to random crime, crimes in which the victim and
perpetrator have a relationship are more preventable through
increased awareness and education. From the symptoms of
abuse—threats, power misuse, and control issues—to
counseling, shelters, hotlines and other resources, the unit
promises help is close at hand.
Bredesen was busy as well, during his two-term tenure as
mayor from 1991 to 1999 adding 200 new police officers to
the force. A staunch advocate of education, he brought 440
new teachers and 32 new schools to Nashville's public school
system while renovating 43 others, spending more than
$500,000 in the process. He also tweaked the curriculum to
teach students the fundamentals of learning with a "back to
basics" approach.
It was under the Bredesen administration that football took
on new meaning for sports fans in Tennessee when the NFL's
Houston Oilers became the Tennessee Titans. Their home was
the newly built "The Coliseum" (formerly The Adelphia
Coliseum.) Gaylord Entertainment Center and a new downtown
library were also built while he was mayor.
In 2002, Bredesen was successful in his second gubernatorial
campaign, beating Republican Congressman Van Hilleary after
a failed bid against Republican Congressman Don Sundquist in
1994.
As the 48th governor of Tennessee, Bredesen pledged better
management of state government, improved Tennessee schools
and an overhaul of TennCare. He has delivered in all three
areas—balancing the state's budget, improving education for
Tennessee's children and continuing to work to control the
costs of TennCare—while expanding his priorities to include
agriculture, conservation, ethics, jobs, and safe
communities.
He founded Nashville's Table, a nonprofit group based on the
premise that if just five percent of the some 96 billion
pounds of food wasted in America each year were recovered,
it would be enough to feed four million people a day for a
year. The organization now serves over 120 agencies
including low-income childcare centers, domestic abuse
shelters, rehabilitation centers, retirement centers, senior
citizen centers, youth programs, soup kitchens, and homeless
shelters.
He also founded the Land Trust for Tennessee, a nonprofit
organization that helps landowners preserve for future
generations natural landscapes and traditional family farms.
Concerning TennCare, with its rolls recently reduced in an
effort to save the program while allowing more money to be
spent on education, Andrea says, stressing new, built-in
safety nets and expanded public health options, "I hear more
and more compliments... People are grateful someone is
taking it on to get it to work better."
Her own work has centered on child abuse and victim's
assistance. The statewide Commission on Crime Victims
Assistance, established in August 2003, provides
recommendations and advice on benefits and other issues
associated with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund.
In September 2004, she began walking to each of 27 child
advocacy centers located along a 600-mile path from Memphis
to Bristol, averaging 13 miles a day through 30 counties.
She completed her walk in early April and announced August 2
that the effort had raised $1.39 million in cash and in-kind
donations. The money will pay for public programs,
educational materials, counseling for children and other
costs associated with the centers designed to streamline the
legal process for children who are victims of abuse.
Andrea’s walk to raise funds
for child advocacy centers was punctuated by the stories of
survivors she met along the way and highlighted by hugs from
children such as this young man.
The home-like atmosphere of the centers provides a safe,
comfortable place in which a single interview can
accommodate the needs of social service agencies and
prosecutors by allowing them to witness the discussion via a
monitor located in another room of the center. Questions may
be relayed to the forensic interviewer by earphone or during
breaks in the session. The centers also provide counseling
to help children recover from sexual or physical abuse.
Says Andrea concerning the outpouring of support evidenced
during her walk, "I think people really step up when they
see something they can do for children and I think people
have a lot of new awareness about child abuse and how to
help kids... and I think kids felt like they were an
important issue."
She speaks as well of her enjoyment in visiting each
community: "This is really an interesting state; every town
and every city has its own character. There's a lot of fun
history and every town and city has its own little culture;
it was really fun to be exposed to that."
Her successful walk was further rewarded when, in April, she
was awarded the third annual Marine Corps Leadership Award
for the state of Tennessee "in honor of her efforts to
improve the quality of life of Tennesseans through her work
in the areas of child abuse and victims' rights."
"It was a great honor," Andrea muses, humbled by the award
presented each year to the Tennessean whose community
leadership, professional achievements and personal standards
embody the Marine Corps' own core values of honor, courage
and commitment.
Major Steven M. Wolf,
Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Recruiting Station
Nashville, presents First Lady of Tennessee Andrea Conte
with the Third Annual Marine Corps Leadership Award at a
ceremony on April 25 in Nashville. Conte received the award
in honor of her work to promote victims’ rights and to raise
statewide awareness about child abuse.
Her third goal—to restore and preserve Tennessee's
76-year-old Georgian Colonial Executive Residence—has also
born fruit. With the slate roof replaced on the home and
carriage house, major restoration is expected to commence in
October in a marriage of old and new: maintaining the
integrity of the building's architecture while modernizing
access to ADA standard for citizens with disabilities.
Along with the mostly privately-funded restoration, Andrea's effort
encompasses the preservation of history in a recently
completed, 60-minute documentary film (The Tennessee
Residence...Memories of the Past, Visions of the Future,
produced by Loree Gold and Jane Pittman) that highlights
eight eras, representing each governor who has resided in
the mansion, including historical events of state and
national importance as well as personal stories shared by
former residents and staff.
Andrea joined former first ladies of Tennessee in hosting a
spring "Luncheon on the Lawn" to raise funds for the
restoration and preservation of the Tennessee residence.
Featuring the first ladies' original inaugural gowns,
artwork by Charles Brindley, and the First Ladies of
Tennessee doll collection, the event attracted more than 400
guests and raised $253,000 for the restoration project.
First ladies hosting the event, in addition to Andrea,
included Betty Dunn, Betty Blanton, Honey Alexander, and
Martha Sundquist.
Steeped in Southern culture, embraced by countless citizens
and with the memory of hundreds of children's hugs tugging
at her heartstrings, Andrea smiles when asked if her roots
have taken hold in her adopted home, "I have to say I do
feel like a Tennessean."
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