Meet the Mayor: Why I Love Warner Robins, GA
New mayor LaRhonda Patrick tells us what she loves about living in the Robins Region.
At the helm of Warner Robins is LaRhonda Patrick, the city’s first elected female, Black and minority mayor, who took office in January 2022. From age 11 until she left for college, she called Warner Robins home as her father was stationed at Robins Air Force Base. Then, while she stayed in Durham, North Carolina, for just over six months following her graduation from law school, she moved back to Warner Robins in 2010 and has been a resident here ever since.
To me, I got the best of both worlds. All I’d ever known was growing up on military bases, so I got the military exposure, but we lived off base for once, and I got to go to regular school. Warner Robins always felt like home for me and my family, and my brothers and I had a great time growing up here.
Things weren’t working out the way I planned when I was in Durham; the economy for attorneys was really bad then. Big law firms were closing down when the recession hit. A lot of my classmates, who had offers to work for those huge law firms, had their offers rescinded, so finding employment in the field I wanted to do was very difficult. Instead of staying up there struggling … I decided to come back to Warner Robins so at least I could take a little bit of my stress down.
It’s close to everything. It has a small-town feel. We don’t have the big traffic problems and big crime problems, but we’re close to the big city if we want to go to the big city.
Just because of the diversity of jobs here. Robins Air Force Base – they call it the big gorilla in the room – is, of course, the largest industrial employer in the entire state with about a $7 billion impact on Georgia. So, the jobs alone just from Robins Air Force Base is a huge opportunity.
It’s going great. I’m really enjoying it. I’m able to make an impact working with Council, and I’m able to make decisions that put Warner Robins in the path of things that people are wanting.
If you’d like to learn more about the Robins Region, check out the latest edition of Livability Robins Region.