Patrick Wojahn has served as the Mayor of College Park, Maryland, for the past five years. He ran for mayor in 2015 after serving for 8 years on the City Council in order to help College Park realize its unfulfilled promise of becoming a top-tier college town. Under Patrick’s leadership, College Park was named by the Washingtonian Magazine as the region’s biggest turnaround, and the city’s reputation as an exciting place to work and live continues to grow. While on Council he took on new initiatives to improve life for College Park residents, such as starting College Park Day, headed a committee to develop new strategies to address problems with rental properties, strengthened the City’s tools to ensure that vacant and abandoned properties are properly maintained, and led initiatives to make the City more environmentally sustainable.
Patrick also works as an advocate for trails and safe bicycle and pedestrian networks as Director of Government Relations at Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Previously, Patrick worked as a policy and legal advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and for people living with HIV/AIDS in the DC metro area. Patrick has served in various leadership roles, including as Chair of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board and as chair of the National League of Cities Transportation and Infrastructure Service Policy Committee. He was a founding member of the Board of Director of the College Park Community Foundation and served on the Boards of Directors of the College Park Community Food Bank and Equality Maryland.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Patrick achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a 15-year-old and spent five years working at Bear Paw Scout Camp in Mountain, Wisconsin. Patrick attributes his leadership skills and dedication to public service to his time as a Boy Scout. He moved to the Washington DC area to obtain his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2002. He has lived in College Park with his husband, Dave Kolesar, for over seventeen years. Patrick and Dave have long advocated for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community and served as a plaintiff couple in the Maryland lawsuit for equal marriage rights, Polyak v. Conaway. He also completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Public Policy.
Please join us on Wednesday, June 2 at 6:00pm as we recognize Patrick and his fellow 2021 NOESA Honorees. To become a sponsor for this event, please visit www.NCACBSA.org/NOESA. Proceeds will go towards providing Eagle Scout Recognition Kits for new Eagle Scouts in the National Capital Area Council.
