Linda Chapin

Linda Welch Chapin, a Florida politician, was the first chairman of the Orange County Commission and an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The former Linda Welch received her early education at the Old Greenwich School in Greenwich, Connecticut and eventually studied political science and journalism at Michigan State University.

Linda met her future husband Bruce E. Chapin at Walt Disney's "It's a Small World" attraction at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. They moved to Orlando, Florida, where she joined (and eventually became president of) both the local chapters of the League of Women Voters and the Junior League. Then, when their children were old enough to attend school, she took a job at a downtown bank, a position that expanded her contacts amongst the city's power brokers.

In 1985, Chapin was selected by the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce to head their "Project 2000," an effort to set millennial goals for the city in the areas of economic development, the arts, and transportation. As this project came to an end, her district's incumbent county commissioner retired and she ran a successful campaign to win his open seat.

As a new county commissioner, Chapin is credited with pushing for modernization of the county charter. This was done in 1988 and included the creation of a new position: Chairman of the Orange County Commission, to be elected by a county-wide vote (rather than being selected from the commissioners representing single member districts). Two years later, in 1990 she was elected the first person to fill that position, buoyed in part by her leading role in getting the Walt Disney Company to work with the county's housing finance authority to buy back bonds and provide mortgage assistance to lower-middle-income families.

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