Mayor ashton hayward biography

In part four of a look back at Pensacola’s current and living former mayors, the first elected under the mayor-council form of government.

Besides being just 41 years old, Ashton Hayward became the first Pensacola mayor in generations who did not serve in the military; certainly, the first whose career included real estate, modeling, and who won the 2010 mayor’s race without serving on the city council — or in any other elected office, for that matter.

“I moved home back in, I think, ’03 and got involved in our community and had the good fortune to grow up in Pensacola,” Hayward said.

“I just felt like Pensacola, being the Cradle of Naval Aviation, such an authentic and incredible city with a lot of history, we just really weren’t reaching our potential.”

He points to what he calls a lack of any collective movement to grow the city in “the right way.” In the aspect of both growing existing businesses and bringing in new ones, he says things w