Hull celebrates a decade of leading Rio Rancho

On April 20, 2014, Gregg Hull was elected as mayor of Rio Rancho via a runoff election to a four-year term. Hull was one of the last to hear the news.

“We were waiting for the results, and we actually had a church service to go to that we were committed to going to. So instead of waiting on the election results, we threw the cellphones in the trunk of the car and said we're going to focus on this church service,” Hull said. “After the church service, we went to where the watch party was going to be and we walked through the door and everybody was starting to say congratulations. That was the first we had heard about it. And we stayed there and finally got the official word from the city offices that we had been elected.”

Hull says "we" because he feels like his wife, Carrie, was also elected.

“I remember driving home from that even,t and I looked at her and she looked at me and I said, ‘What have we done?’ She says, ‘What have you done?”’

That was Hull’s first foray into politics following a successful career in business.

“You run for the office and you've never been in the political world before. I don't know if you really expect that you're going to get elected,” Hull said. “But then when you do, it takes on a whole new meaning of, OK, I'm the mayor of my city now. And it was pretty incredible.”

Ten years later, Hull is in the middle of his third term and has helped the City of Vision blossom into the fastest-growing city in New Mexico and reach the cusp of being the second-largest city in the state.

Hull was driven to run for mayor because of his business background.

“I had just a year prior sold my small business and was thinking about starting a new business. As I was working on starting a new business, I was going through the process of trying to set things up and when I was talking to different business owners here in Rio Rancho, they talked about how difficult it was to get a business license in Rio Rancho.

"I started looking into that and realized that it was kind of a complicated process. And so through the process of saying, ‘Oh, somebody should do something about this,’ people started pointing at me and saying, ‘Well, you're, you're a former business guy, and you know what this takes. So why don't you do something about it?’ And that intrigued me, so I literally Googled how to run for mayor.”

After doing research on how to run a campaign and what would be required of him in a leadership position, Hull got 43% of the votes in the 2014 general election before winning the runoff by more than 1,900 votes.

“I was incredibly humbled by the fact that the citizens gave me the opportunity to be their mayor,” Hull said.

A decade later, Hull is about to make history as the longest-tenured mayor in the 43-year history of the City of Vision.

Hull is Rio Rancho’s 12th mayor and is the only one to be elected to three consecutive terms. Hull and Thomas Swisstack are the only mayors to serve for 10 years.

Hull took time to look back on his and the city’s accomplishments in the past 10 years and the work he and the city council did address infrastructure, public safety and road construction.

“When I took office, we were in full on stagnation when it came to building or businesses coming here. There was nothing happening, no roads were being fixed whatsoever and we were still stuck deep in the coming out of the recession,” Hull said. “With the housing market collapse, and so many things in the budget being as tight as it was for the city, we needed to figure out how to get the economy started again so we could pay for these things. Working very closely with the city manager and city council, we started to develop the things that we needed to do to get the city to move forward.”

Since then, the road bond was established, which has helped to pave more than 38 major roadways in Rio Rancho. Public safety bonds were started that helped the city meet the needs of first responders. Hull also focused on Rio Rancho’s future development and growth, with a focus on job creation and business development.

Hull’s proudest accomplishment in his 10-year tenure was the creation of a permanent fund in 2022 for future generations which set aside $10 million without raising taxes.

“We had the opportunity to tuck away $10 million and let it grow for future residents. I think long term; that has the potential to have one of the greatest impacts on Rio Rancho,” Hull said. “So I'm very proud of the legacy fund, the permanent fund that the voters agreed with my vision to set something up. And it wasn't just singularly my vision; city staff worked on this and city staff had the idea of setting something aside. I wanted to just create a savings account. But working with staff, they said, 'Hey, look, let's put this in the charter.' And then we took it to the voters and ultimately what we did is we said, 'Here's $10 million; we're going to put it in a lockbox,' and we handed the keys back to the citizens.”

In just two years, the permanent fund has grown to $12 million. If future administrations want to access those funds, they have to put it on a ballot and let voters decide.

Hull hasn’t decided if he will run for a fourth term in 2026, but he does still have work to do and goals to accomplish in this term.

“I would like to see more jobs created here. We've had quite a few jobs that have been created,” Hull said. “When I first took office, we really felt like Intel had one foot out the door. Now they're back, and we're very proud of that. So we've gotten that job creation back in the city, and I'm grateful for that, but I'd like to see more.”

Hull credited previous leaders, volunteers and city staff for building the community’s affordability and quality of life. He also wants to see Rio Rancho continue to grow and flourish.

“Our focus hasn't changed in 10 years: fix the roads, improve public safety and improve the quality of life. I think if you do those things, your business development and growth comes naturally at that point,” Hull said. “People want to invest in the community and want to be a part of the community and, as we can see right now, people are flocking to this community. That's because we are a great community and we're a welcoming community and I think people see the value in what Rio Rancho has to offer. Rio Rancho is the greatest community in the state of New Mexico because of all the people who work to make it that way.”