Now serving his tenth term in Congress, Newt Gingrich is the first Republican to be re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives since 1928. First elected Speaker on January 4th, 1995, and re-elected on January 7, 1997, Gingrich served as House Republican Whip from 1989-1994. He represents the Sixth Congressional District of Georgia, including parts of Cobb, Cherokee, North Fulton and Gwinnett Counties north of Atlanta.

Acknowledged as the chief architect of the Republican "Contract with America," he served as chairman of the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego. Gingrich has been called the "Hottest Entrepreneur in America" by Peter Drucker in Inc. Magazine, who noted, "The most visible innovator and entrepreneur in this country today is neither in business nor the social sector. He's in government. It's Newt Gingrich. If I've ever seen a real entrepreneur, he's one. An entrepreneur is someone who gets something new done."
 

Time magazine, in naming Gingrich "Man of the Year" for 1995, said, "Newt Gingrich belongs in the category of the exceptional ..... Today, because of Newt Gingrich, the question is not whether a balanced budget plan will come to pass, but when." Forbes magazine said, "Never in American history has a Speaker of the House pushed through so much sweeping, substantive legislation as Newt Gingrich is doing." In naming him its Georgian of the Year in January 1995, Georgia Trend magazine called him "the most talked-about, written-about political figure in the nation." In 1993, he was honored as "Cobb County Citizen of the Year" by the Marietta Daily Journal.

Gingrich, along with his wife, Marianne, and David Drake, authored Window of Opportunity. He was co-author, with Rep. Richard Armey, of the best-selling book, Contract With America, proceeds from which go to charity. He is author of the bestseller, To Renew America, which outlines his political philosophy and vision. He also authored a fiction work, 1945, with historian William Forstchen.

Gingrich is co-founder of the Earning By Learning reading program for at-risk children. He has recently been involved in fund-raising efforts for the Paralympics, Cobb YWCA Battered Women's Shelter, Georgia Breast Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, North Fulton and Cobb Senior Service Centers, Juvenile Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, Spina Bifida Association, Georgia Autism Society, Children's Wish Foundation, Zoo Atlanta, Boys' Town, Cobb County and North Fulton Habitat for Humanity, Atlanta Respite Center, Georgia Public Television, Good Samaritan Clinic, Boy Scouts of America, Roswell Vietnam War Memorial, March of Dimes, Heart Association and United Cerebral Palsy. He sponsored a Habitat for Humanity home in Cobb County in 1995, including raising all funds for the home and participating in its construction. In April of 1995, he was honored as March of Dime's "Georgia Citizen of the Year."

The son of Kathleen "Kit" Gingrich and the late Lt. Col. Robert Gingrich, a career Army officer, Speaker Gingrich received his Bachelor's degree from Emory University and a Masters and Doctorate from Tulane University in Modern European History. He taught History and Environmental Studies at West Georgia College for eight years before being elected to Congress in 1978. He returned to the classroom, on a volunteer basis, in September 1993, to teach a course entitled "Renewing American Civilization" at Kennesaw State College and later at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia.

He and his wife, Marianne, live in Marietta. He has two adult daughters, Kathy and Jackie.