Let's get to work. Tim Kelly is a proven leader with a heart for Chattanooga. He was born here. He raised his sons here. And with a successful career managing and running multiple local businesses under his belt, he’s ready to get to work building a city that works for everybody.
“Chattanooga is a truly special city. I have spent the better part of my life working in both the private and non-prof
it sectors to help make it a better place, but I believe we’re now at a real crossroads. Chattanooga has some big challenges ahead of it, but with the right leadership, we can still live up to our potential as a city. I think I have the right resume for the job,” says Tim. Born in April 1967, Tim is a lifelong resident of Chattanooga, and it will always be his home. He has no political ambitions beyond becoming this city’s mayor and getting Chattanooga back on the right track. Growing up in a family that emphasized servant leadership, Tim still embraces that approach today. Though he is known these days for his business acumen and his tireless work on non-profit boards, it took a lifetime of lessons, learned both from his parents and his community, to make him the leader he is today. Tim found his first job at age 15, working as a busboy at the original Vine Street Market. He continued to work through summers in high school at his family’s dealership as a porter and a parts clerk. A good student in high school, Tim was offered an honors scholarship to Columbia University in New York. Tim admits he felt intimidated at the prospect of moving to New York and the academic rigor of an Ivy League school, but he thrived there. After earning his degree in 1989, he returned to Chattanooga to work at the dealership that his grandfather, Jim Ayers, founded in 1936. Tim soon began making his mark in the Scenic City. He coached his sons’ Little League baseball teams, joined non-profit organizations to address community concerns, and even taught entrepreneurship and marketing as an adjunct professor at UTC. As he embraced his civic responsibilities, he also doubled down on his business ventures, adding more locations to the automotive and powersports businesses and expanding into digital marketing and a Chattanooga brewery. He even co-founded our local, independent professional soccer club, CFC. Today he serves as chairman of the board for the Chattanooga Football Club, and the list of companies he owns, co-owns, founded and/or operates includes Kelly Subaru, Chattanooga Brewing Company, Southern Honda Powersports, SocialBot and Workshop. As a civic leader, Tim has served on boards for the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Chattanooga, the Benwood Foundation, River City Company, Allied Arts (now ArtsBuild), Chattanooga 2.0, and the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, among others. In many ways it was Tim’s work with nonprofit groups that opened his eyes to the potential of leveraging a more effective city government to fix the structural issues that hold Chattanooga back. “I have had a front row seat for decades where it was my responsibility to grapple with Chattanooga’s social, economic, and cultural issues, and I feel I’m therefore well qualified to identify and address those problems,” Tim says. “I love this city, and I want to see it succeed. So let’s get to work.” Vote for Tim on March 2.
