Martin Richard

Martin Richard in October 2011

Martin Richard (born November 8, 1951 in Niederbruch ) is a German politician ( CDU ). From December 2, 1997 to December 1, 2015, he was mayor of the central Hessian district town of Limburg an der Lahn .

Martin Richard trained as a draftsman , in 1972 he completed his studies as an engineer for architecture at the Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences and in 1975 as a graduate engineer for spatial and environmental planning at the University of Kaiserslautern . In 1978, through a job with the city of Hadamar , he became personal advisor to the then Limburg mayor Josef Kohlmaier . His areas of responsibility in the town hall included public relations , economic development and urban development . In 1986 he moved to the neighboring district office as head of the building departmentof the Limburg-Weilburg district .

From 1974 to 1982 Richard was active in local politics as a community representative in Brechen . There he was building committee and parliamentary group chairman. In 1991 he ran for the CDU in the election of the Limburg mayor and was narrowly defeated by the candidate of the red-green majority in the city council. In the local elections in 1993, Richard was the CDU's top candidate for the election of the city council in Limburg. He then became chairman of the CDU parliamentary group and chairman of the main and finance committee. In the first direct election of a mayor in Limburg, Richard won against the then incumbent Peter Arnold ( SPD ) and two other candidates with 50.8% in the first ballot. In 2003 (68.9 percent) and 2009 (60.2 percent) each was re-elected. In total, Richard was seven times the top candidate in local and mayoral elections. In the election on June 14, 2015, Richard did not run again.

Richard has been a member of the Central Hesse regional assembly since 2001, where he was chairman of the main and planning committee from November 2011 to November 2016 and has led the CDU parliamentary group on this body since November 2016. He was also a member of the Presidium of the Hessian Association of Cities and chairman of the “Center” working group in this Association of the Hessian Association of Cities . He is a volunteer member of the Board of Directors of the Limburg Beautification Association and has been Chairman of the Advisory Board of Volksbank Rhein-Lahn-Limburg since December 2016 .

Martin Richard has lived in the Limburg district of Offheim since 1986 , is married and has two grown children.