Ted Wilson (mayor)

He was appointed Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Wayne Owens (D-UT) in March 1973. In April 1975 he was appointed to direct the Department of Social Services in Salt Lake County. In November 1975 he was elected as Mayor of Salt Lake City. He served as Mayor until July 1, 1985, when he became the Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Retiring from the Hinckley Institute in September 2003, Wilson retains status as Professor Emeritus of political science and continues to teach classes at the university. Wilson is a founder of the Exoro Co.

He ran against Orrin Hatch for the Senate in 1982. In 1988, he was the Democratic candidate for Governor of the State of Utah. In 1991, Wilson was selected by the Harvard University John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics as an institute fellow during the Autumn Semester.

His terms were noted by an election in May, 1979 to change the five member commission form of government to a mayor/council form. This initiative was created by a city scandal involving the take-over of the city personnel department by the chief of police.

Wilson loves the sport of mountaineering and has climbed routes in Utah, in the Tetons, and in other ranges including the Alps, Alaska, and the Andes. Wilson has established three climbing schools still in operation and was a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. He guided in the Tetons for Exum Mountain Guides and owned the Jackson Hole Mountain Guides in 1970. He received the Department of the Interior Valor award for a mountain rescue on the North Face of the Grand Teton in 1967.

From 1957 to 1963, he served in the Utah Army National Guard and was activated to full-time status during the Berlin Crisis. He was an instructor at the Leysin American School, Leysin, Switzerland for one year. He also taught economics at Skyline High School, Salt Lake City, Utah for seven years. During the summer months of 1966 to 1969 he was a mountaineering park ranger in Grand Teton National Park.

Ted Lewis Wilson (born May 18, 1939) is an American politician who served as the 30th mayor of Salt Lake City from 1976 until July 1985. He won three elections. Wilson resigned during his third term to become the director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah where he held an adjunct assistant professorship of Political Science.

Ted Wilson was born May 18, 1939, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attended schools in Salt Lake City, graduating from South High School in 1957 and from the University of Utah in 1964, with a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. He received a master's degree in Education from the University of Washington in 1969. In 1983, he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Westminster College of Salt Lake City.