Bob Babbage

Babbage Cofounder

 Click to view video

Bob Babbage is the national managing partner of Babbage Cofounder, a government relations and corporate business development firm.

Babbage Cofounder helps companies improve results in all aspects of lobbying, communications, business and government relationship management and issues advocacy.  Babbage Cofounder has advised executives from the Global Fortune 100 to America’s Fortune 1000 plus regional companies, startups and leading public interest associations.

The Lexington Herald-Leader has ranked Babbage Cofounder first among Kentucky lobbyists based on public records.  He has been named as one of Kentucky’s “20 Most Influential” non-elected leaders by the Kentucky Gazette.

After winning statewide Kentucky elections and serving as Secretary of State (1992-96) and Auditor (1988-92), Bob competed unsuccessfully in the 1995 Democrat primary election for Governor of Kentucky.   Bob’s outstanding campaign led to his selection as Chairman and C.E.O of the Kentucky Democratic Party.  Later in the 1990’s he was vice president of U.S. Corrections Corporation and a senior fellow at the Council of State Governments.

President Bill Clinton appointed Bob to the Coordinating Council of Juvenile Justice chaired by Attorney General Janet Reno and later by Attorney General John Ashcroft.  Secretary of State Colin Powell under President George Bush named Bob to the Advisory Committee for Cultural Diplomacy.

Bob began his political career as the youngest person ever elected to an at-large seat on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council. He is a member of the charter class of Leadership Lexington, the originator of Leadership Kentucky, a founding board member of the Lexington Forum and helped start the Louisville Forum and the Kentucky Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Foundation Program.  He was assistant to the president of the University of Kentucky from 1984 to 1986.

Bob is frequently called on to provide political analysis for the media and appeared on the CBS Nightly News in 2002.  He hosts Capitol Insights, a statewide televised public affairs program.

Bob appears weekly on WVLK-AM discussing issues and political races.  He is the author of Meet You in the Lobby published in 2002.

Bob is a graduate of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and holds a Master of Arts in Social Ethics from the Lexington Theological Seminary.  He is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University.

Married 27 years, Bob and Laura Babbage live in Lexington, Kentucky with children, Robert (18), Julie (14) and Brian (12). They are active members of the Roman CatholicChurch. Bob and Laura are graduates of Eastern Kentucky University and the Patterson School of Diplomacy (M.A.) at U. K. Laura, a former health care CEO, is a Master of Divinity student at Lexington Theological Seminary, where Bob received an M.A. in social ethics.