John Cooper
John Cooper is the ninth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Since taking office in 2019, he has achieved historic results for residents by making Nashville’s neighborhoods the centerpiece of his agenda.
Prior to serving as Mayor, John Cooper served as an At-Large Member of Metro Council from 2015 to 2019, receiving the second most votes in Nashville’s history for a Council Member in the city-wide election.
He brings more than 30 years of business and financial experience in retail, banking, and real estate to his leadership. He is the founder of The Heritage at Brentwood, a large, continuing-care senior living community, and Happy ReTales, a volunteer-directed, pet products retail store where all profits benefit animal rescue.
Mayor Cooper holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree in business from Vanderbilt University.
He was born in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville. His brother Jim served as a United States Congressman representing Nashville for over 30 years, and his father Prentice Cooper was the 39th governor of Tennessee from 1939-1945.
He and his wife, Constitutional law professor Laura Fitzgerald Cooper, have three teenage sons and three dogs. They attend Christ Church Cathedral.
Laura Cooper
Laura Fitzgerald Cooper is a writer, teacher, and the mother of three young adult sons. A native Virginian, she graduated from Hollins College (now University) and Yale Law School. She practiced law in Washington, D.C. and New York City before joining the law faculty at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. During her decade as a professor there, she taught subjects in American constitutional law, including Federal Courts and the Separation of Powers. She retired from teaching when her children were young, and since then she has written essays, articles, and book reviews that have appeared in the Washington Post and other publications. She was named a Fellow for fiction writing at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Nashville with her husband, John Cooper, and their three dogs.