Juan Carlos Navarro

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For the professional basketball player, see Juan Carlos Navarro (basketball)

Juan Carlos Navarro

Mayor of Panama City
In office 1999-2004, 2004 – 2009
Preceded by	Mayin Correa

Born	October 19, 1961 Panama City, Panama
Political party	PRD
Spouse	Cuqui Campagnani
Children	3
Residence	Panama City
Religion	Catholic
Website	JuanCarlosNavarro.com

Juan Carlos Navarro (born October 19, 1961) is a Panama businessman, environmentalist, and politician and is the current Mayor of Panama City, Panama

[edit] Environmentalist life

He received his A.B. from Dartmouth College (1983) and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University (1985). He was most famous in Panama prior to becoming a politian as one of the founders and head of the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON), Panama’s leading non-profit environmental NGO, in 1985 and established it as the top independent environmental group in Panama and one of the most important in Latin America. He was selected among the planet’s 100 most promising leaders by TIME magazine (1994) and as one of the key Latin American Leaders for the new millennium by both TIME and CNN (1999).

He was elected to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as Regional Councilor for Latin America in 1990, and was re-elected to that post in 1994, serving as the first Panamanian and the youngest member ever elected to the Council. Selected in 1998 as the first Inter-American Conservation Fellow by The Nature Conservancy’s Center for Compatible Economic Development, with the support of the MacArthur Foundation, Mr. Navarro was the first conservation leader from the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific Rim to be so honored. In 1998, he authored the book Panama National Parks, which was published in Madrid, Spain, and is the country’s first comprehensive text on national parks and nature reserves (currently in its second edition).

[edit] Political life

He joined the PRD in April 1998 and was elected to the nine-member National Executive Committee, the PRD’s top governing organism, in August 2002. Mayor Navarro was awarded the International Award for Excellence in 2001 by the prestigious Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), in recognition of his global environmental leadership. Navarro is fluent in Spanish, French and English.

Juan Carlos Navarro was originally elected Mayor of Panama City for a five-year term (1999-2004) after winning his party’s primaries (October 1998) and the general election in May of 1999. He was reelected for a five-year term (2004-2009) in May 2004. The youngest citizen elected to the Mayor’s office; Navarro oversees 5,000 municipal employees and a US$59.8 million annual budget (2005). He was elected unanimously as the first President of the National Mayor’s Association of Panama (2001) and reelected twice for the same position (2003, 2005). Mayor Navarro also served as co-President of the Unión de Ciudades Capitales de Iberoamericanas (UCCI) together with Mayor Alvarez del Manzano of Madrid, Spain (2002).