This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 9, 2012 - If nothing else, Dave Spence, the Republican candidate for governor, wants Missouri voters to remember one thing about him:
He’s not a banker. He simply served on a bank’s board of directors.
Even Spence’s latest attack ad against Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, includes the line “Not a Banker’’ under Spence’s photo.
That distinction is at the heart of Spence’s campaign these days, as he tackles the problems facing a candidate who has never run for office before. The public’s lack of knowledge about a new candidate’s background can be exploited by a rival.
Spence, 54, says that he’s running for office out of frustration and that politics has never been his dream in life. His success in business, and in his personal life, was – and remains – his dream, Spence says.
Dave Spence grew up in St. Louis County, splitting his high school years between Ritenour and Kirkwood High School, where he graduated.
In 1981, he graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in consumer economics – officially “home economics’’ – which garnered him free publicity on national talk shows last winter because one of his early fliers had simply said his degree was in “economics.”
Spence says he ended up with the home economics degree because he worked two jobs during college and failed to earn the grade-point average needed to get into the university’s School of Economics. But he emphasized that he had taken several regular economics courses as well as consumer law and business law.
His key point, he adds, is that “I wasn’t baking cookies.”
What his college degree is in, he adds, shouldn’t matter. “That was 32 years ago. I have more than made up for the pre-season,” he said. “Pre-season does not matter.
“I’ll take ‘real world success’ over college success.”
Back in Kirkwood after graduation, Spence worked for his family’s plastic-molding company. After it failed in 1984, he bought Alpha Packaging, then a small plastic-packaging company with annual sales of about $350,000.
Spence frequently tells how he had been turned down by 12 banks and purchased Alpha with the help of a federal loan through the Small Business Administration. He sold most of his interest in Alpha to a private equity firm in 2010. By that time, the firm's annual business was $200 million, with about 850 employees.
Spence also owns Legacy Packaging, a pharmaceutical-packing business based in Earth City, and a restaurant in Park City, Utah, run by a chef who's a friend.
Spence is active in charities, and says that, under his watch, Alpha set up a scholarship program for the children of employees.
“I’ve been a natural born leader all my life,” Spence said. “I enjoy helping other people.”
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce of Industry has endorsed him.
Five years on bank board
Spence began serving on Reliance Bancshares’ board in 2005 and became a member of its governing holding company in May 2009. Spence emphasizes that the holding company voted to accept $40 million in federal bailout money, known as TARP, several months before he came aboard.
He was, however, part of the holding company when it voted in February 2011 to delay paying the $2.2 million initial repayment. Spence says the bank was advised by federal regulators to hold off.
He initially had told the Beacon in 2011 that he had left the bank over the issue, but Spence says his comments were misinterpreted. He said he didn’t recall voting on the matter and, after reporters inquired about it, he called the bank to verify if he had participated in the vote to delay payment. He had.
Spence said in a recent interview that, before the vote, he already had given notice of his plans to leave the holding company. “I went off for a multitude of reasons,” he said. “There was not one specific ‘ah ha’ reason.”
During his time on the holding company, Spence purchased 500,000 shares of Reliance stock, valued then at $3 apiece, for a total cost of $1.5 million. Overall, Spence then owned 588,824 shares of stock directly.
Spence also took out at least three loans, which he and campaign manager Jared Craighead said were encouraged by the bank to help its business. One loan was a mortgage for a new building at Alpha, another was a home equity loan on his residence and the third loan was for the house he built at Lake of the Ozarks.
Spence and Craighead say the loans had no relationship to the TARP money and emphasize that Spence has “always made his payments on time.”
A spokesman for Reliance told the Beacon in 2011 that Spence served the bank “with distinction."
Adopting business practices for government
Spence’s campaign is benefiting financial from his business success. “I’ve put in $4 million and that’s an investment in Missouri. I feel that’s the right thing to do, I’m not trying to buy anything.”
Spence says his experience fits the classic American success story and has shaped his view that what works in business could work in government.
"I’ve seen the good, bad and the ugly of economic development in a lot of different states,” he said. “And I think Missouri is asleep at the switch. It’s not a matter of giving away incentives, but it’s getting out of the way of businesses, having a spirit of cooperation.”
If elected, Spence proposes bringing in accountants from major businesses such as Enterprise Rent A Car and Express Scripts to look over how Missouri’s various departments operate and to find ways to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
He also advocates transforming Missouri into a right-to-work state, which would bar closed union shops. “I’m not anti-union,’’ he said, but Spence contends the move would attract jobs that now go to Missouri’s six neighboring states with right-to-work laws.
Spence calls for changing Missouri’s law to make it more difficult to sue; he would require the loser in a lawsuit to pay all legal fees for both parties. He contends Missouri is becoming the “Sue-Me State.”
Such quips fit in with Spence’s campaign persona, which appears to emulate the blunt-talking style of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom he admires.
“People are starving for a leader (who) means what they say and do what they say,” Spence said.
He also doesn’t apologize for his lack of a political background. “I’ll take real-world experience every single time over political experience.”
But he wants to make one point perfectly clear: Dave Spence is not a banker.
In his latest ad, he looks into the camera and says, "I'm a manufacturer."
