As Governor Pat McCrory prepares to defend his office in November, one stop along his campaign tour will be in Winston-Salem for the third live interview in our Candidate Conversations series.
The governor has spent a lot of time in and around the startup community—he’s spoken at the CED Tech Venture Conference and addressed the crowd gathered for the Institute for Emerging Issues’ annual forum. He recently signed a crowdfunding bill meant to help small and startup businesses raise capital from almost anyone in the state of North Carolina.
And in 2015, he took part in a major announcement for the Durham Innovation District—when the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative chose to move its offices from campus into downtown.
McCrory, 59, has served four years as governor of North Carolina, after a record seven terms as mayor of Charlotte. He spent 28 years at Duke Energy, retiring to work for a sales consulting firm and then a Charlotte law firm. He was born in Ohio but moved to Jamestown, North Carolina as a child and attended Catawba College.
According to McCrory’s campaign website, he considers his biggest accomplishments in office reducing unemployment and strengthening the North Carolina economy in a “Carolina Comeback”, reducing corporate and personal tax rates, approving a $2 billion Connect NC bond to fund a variety of infrastructure projects around the state and raising teacher pay. He’ll share more of his accolades and priorities in the conversation next week.
Check back here for a recap after the interview. And to get an idea of the types of questions we’ll ask and how candidates are responding so far, read our Cooper and Ross recap stories.
We hope to conclude our first Candidate Conversations series with U.S. Senator Richard Burr. Details to come.
