Kent Guinn assumed the office of Mayor in December 2011 after serving the City of Ocala for 12 years as the Councilman representing District 4.

Mayor Guinn is in the financial services business and is a representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America as well as owner of the firm Guinn & Company, LLC.

For the past 29 years he has served on the Board of the Children’s Home Society Mid-Florida Division which covers North Central Florida. He served on the CHS State Board of Directors for 26 years. CHS is a 112-year-old not for profit child welfare agency in the State of Florida. Mayor Guinn was adopted through CHS.

He is a current member of the following Boards: Appleton Museum of Art Advisory Board, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s Florida Advisory Committee, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and he serves on the Criminal of Justice and International Affairs Committee, Member of the Ocala Horse Alliance.

His past memberships and affiliations include: Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority Board; Ocala Marion County Chamber of Commerce Board (3 years); Ocala Marion County EDC (3 years); Fort King Heritage Board; Community Council Against Substance Abuse (CCASA); President of the Marion County Transportation Planning Organization; National League of Cities Committee for Municipalities in Transition; Arbitrator for Juvenile Alternative Services Program; Marion County Tourist Development Commission; President of Local Coordinating Board of Transportation for Disadvantaged; Success by Six Leadership Committee.

• He has completed Leadership Florida for Elected Officials. He has also testified in front of numerous House and Senate Committees in the Florida legislature. He was awarded the Dave Thomas Child Advocate Award by the Mid-Florida Division for his service to children in his division.
• He led an effort to outlaw K-2 synthetic marijuana with a local ordinance turned to State law working with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office. It was taken off the shelves throughout the State.
• He worked with Orange County Commissioner Scott Boyd to outlaw secondary metal thefts (copper) and spent two years lobbying the legislature to get the bill passed. Metal thefts were reduced in the State by 90% in approximately 90 days.
• He got an Enterprise Zone Bill passed for Ocala, Marion County, which created millions of dollars of new companies along with hundreds of jobs.
• He created a Residency Program for Homeless Men, Open Arms Village, which has an 85% success rate. When men leave there, they have thousands of dollars in the bank, a job, and a place to live. Before, they were homeless, living in the streets.
• He convened a task force on opioid/heroin addiction for Marion County two years ago which is still active.
• He helped create an Amnesty program with the Chief of Police that allows drug addicts to walk in off the streets and receive help in a residential treatment program at no cost to them. Mayor Guinn is a 5th generation Ocalan. His family has been in Ocala since 1850. He and his wife Sandra have been married for 39 years and have two sons.