Mayor (2004 To present)
John B. Callahan

10 East Church Street
Bethlehem, PA 18018
(610) 865-7100

John Callahan was sworn in as the mayor of Bethlehem, the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, on January 5, 2004. He was elected mayor in November 2003 in a landslide victory not only taking over 60% of the votes but also sweeping every ward in the city. Mayor Callahan had a second landslide victory in the 2005 primary and ran unopposed in the general election. He was sworn into office for his first four-year term mandated by voters on January 3, 2006.

Mayor Callahan served on Bethlehem City Council from 1998-2004. When he was elected to City Council in 1998, he became the youngest Councilman in the history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He chaired the Finance Committee and the Public Works Committee.

Mayor Callahan is a recent graduate of the Harvard University JFK School of Government Executive Program on Leadership in the 21st Century as well as the Transition and Leadership for New Elected Mayors Program. Mayor Callahan recently was invited back to the Kennedy School by the United States Conference of Mayors to speak about the transitioning form campaign to governing.

He serves on the Board of Directors for Lehigh Valley Industrial Park, Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, and the Minsi Trails Council of the Boy Scouts of America, for which he is also the Chair of the Urban Scouting Program in Bethlehem. He serves as 2nd Vice President of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities as well as the Chair of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities Municipal Programs Committee and is a member of the National League of Cities Policy Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources. Mayor Callahan is Co-Chair of South Side Vision 2012 and also a member of the Pennsylvania Society and Bethlehem Rotary.

Mayor Callahan grew up on the West Side of Bethlehem and graduated Cum Laude with a B.S. in Biology from Moravian College. Before becoming Mayor of the City of Bethlehem Callahan was a Senior Institutional Healthcare Consultant for Pfizer, Inc., a “Fortune 20” company. The company had employed him for 13 years. He and his wife, Mafalda, have three children and reside in Northeast Bethlehem.