Pat McCrory

Pat McCrory was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to North Carolina as a youth in the mid-1960s, living in Greensboro. He earned a bachelor's in teaching from Catawba College. McCrory worked for what is now Duke Energy Corp. for about 30 years, rising the ladder to become an economic development executive. He once worked as a basketball referee. He won a seat on the Charlotte City Council in 1989 and six years later was elected mayor. He served at the post for a record 14 years. He ran for governor in 2008 but lost to Democrat Bev Perdue. After leaving Duke Energy he joined his brother's consulting firm and worked for a Charlotte law firm. McCrory is neither a lawyer nor, by his reckoning, a lobbyist, which allows him to skirt the state's disclosure requirements for lobbyists. Instead, he was listed as his firm's director of strategic initiatives: "Nature of business: policy consultant/client development marketing." McCrory and his wife, Ann, live in Charlotte.