Dave Spence is a corporate executive and American politician.
Background
Dave Spence was born in Overland in Saint Louis County, Missouri. He spent much of his childhood in the Saint Louis area with his mother and two sisters. His father had started a rubber and plastics business, for which Dave Spence worked as a teen.
However, the business failed in the early 1980s.
Career
He was the Republican candidate for the office of governor of Missouri in the 2012 election. He lost the election to incumbent Jay Nixon. Following graduation from Kirkwood High School, Spence earned a degree in Home Economics from the University of Missouri in Columbia.
In 1985, the 26-year-old Spence purchased Alpha Packaging, a small plastics firm.
Under his ownership it expanded from 15 to 800 employees. Spence has a family background in the plastics industry.
Spence has also served as Chairman of Legacy Pharmaceutical Packaging. In November 2011, Spence announced his intention to run for Governor of Missouri regardless of whether Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder decided to run.
Kinder decided to run for reelection as Lieutenant Governor and endorsed Spence for governor.
Spence, who has never held elected office before, has said: "Well one thing I would do is bring a fresh approach to everything. I am willing to jump in there and work my tail off, and I think it can be done. lieutenant’s a good point in my life and I feel the urgency to do something, and I can’t sleep at night knowing that I can make a difference and rally the troops and get the state turned around if I had the opportunity and said northern"
Spence"s campaign website asserted that he held a degree in economics, a statement also made on at least one campaign flier, which also incorrectly stated that he had gone to the university"s business school.
His degree is actually in home economics.
After the inaccuracy was revealed and publicly criticized in January 2012, he corrected his website. Regarding the errors, Spence told the Associated Press "I have said all along that I will not or do not lie.
A lot of this is overblown, as I was not aware of any place that said business school. I will take responsibility for this.
I did not catch the mistake on early campaign literature." Spence"s campaign manager cited a staff oversight for the error.
He received 333,578 votes (599 percent) to outpace nearest challenger Bill Randles" 90,651 (163 percent). Spence was defeated by incumbent Democrat Jay Nixon in the November 2012 general election. In his contest against Nixon, Spence had the support of Phyllis Schlafly"s Eagle Forum political action committee.