Full Biography

Congressman Bill Young (R-Indian Shores) is serving his 21st term in Congress as a representative of the Tenth Congressional District of Florida. He is the senior member of the Florida congressional delegation and is the senior Republican in the entire Congress, House and Senate. He has now served over 50 years in public office (10 in the Florida State Senate and 41 in the United States Congress) and has worked with eight Presidents of the United States.

A nine-year veteran of the Army National Guard, and six more as a reservist, Young is nationally known for his expertise on defense and security issues. He currently serves as Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which he previously chaired from 1995-1998 and 2005-2006. He is also a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.

From 1999-2005, Congressman Young served as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, overseeing the entire federal discretionary budget. In fact, the last time the United States had a balanced federal budget was under his Chairmanship.

Throughout his service on the Appropriations Committee, Young has been dedicated to improving the quality of life of the men and women who serve and who have served in the military. He regularly meets with enlisted personnel and officers to assess their needs, and as a result, Congress has invested in improved base housing, better medical care, increased pay, and more modern equipment for the military.

Young has also been a leading advocate for increased biomedical research. During his Chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, he successfully led the effort in Congress to double federal medical research funding over five years. He has likewise led the fight for federal funding for a variety of medical issues, including an increased immunization rate for preschoolers, improved public health programs nationwide, and cures for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases.

In 1986, Young was instrumental in creating a national registry for bone marrow donors. Now named the "C.W. Bill Young Marrow Donor Recruitment and Research Program" in his honor, the registry lists more than nine million volunteer donors for patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases and has served as a model for similar programs throughout the world. It has provided the gift of life to more than 50,000 individuals and facilitates an average of 15 bone marrow transplants every day of the year.

Throughout his career of public service, Young has been a strong advocate for the needs of Pinellas County. Among other issues, he has worked to ease congestion along U.S. Highway 19; attract high-tech jobs to St. Petersburg; improve health care for low-income children and families; protect the neighboring MacDill Air Force Base; build a state of the art medical center for veterans at Bay Pines; ensure a steady supply of water for the Tampa Bay area; and offset the effects of erosion on the area's beaches.

Young was born in Harmarville, Pennsylvania, and moved to Pinellas County at the age of 15. Congressman Young and his wife Beverly have three adult sons, Rob, Billy, and Patrick.

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