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Eric Greitens
Eric Schmitt (cropped).jpg
Official portrait, 2017
56th Governor of Missouri
In office
January 9, 2017 – June 1, 2018
Lieutenant Mike Parson
Preceded by Jay Nixon
Succeeded by Mike Parson
Personal details
Born
Eric Robert Greitens

(1974-04-10) April 10, 1974 (age 49)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Political party Republican (since 2015)
Other political
affiliations
Democratic (before 2015)
Spouses
Rebecca Wright
(m. 2000; div. 2003)
Sheena Chestnut
(m. 2011; div. 2020)
Children 2
Education Duke University (BA)
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (MPhil, DPhil)
Civilian awards President's Volunteer Service Award
Military service
Allegiance  United States
Branch/service  United States Navy
Years of service 2001–2021
Rank US-O4 insignia.svg Lieutenant commander
Unit United States Navy Special Warfare insignia.png U.S. Navy SEALs
U.S. Navy Reserve
Battles/wars Iraq War
War in Afghanistan
Military awards Bronze Star ribbon.svg Bronze Star
Purple Heart BAR.svg Purple Heart
Joint Service Commendation Medal ribbon.svg Joint Service Commendation Medal
Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal ribbon.svg Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal
Complete list of decorations

Eric Robert Greitens ( GRY-tənz; born April 10, 1974) is an American former politician who was the 56th governor of Missouri from January 2017 until his resignation in June 2018.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Greitens graduated from Duke University in 1996 and received a doctorate from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar in 2000. During his four tours of duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer, he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, commanded a unit targeting al-Qaeda, and was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Later, after being a White House fellow, Greitens founded a nonprofit organization, The Mission Continues, to benefit veterans. In 2013, Time included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Early life and education

Greitens was born on April 10, 1974, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Becky and Rob Greitens. Greitens's mother was a special education teacher and his father was an accountant for the Missouri Department of Agriculture. His mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic, and Greitens was raised Jewish. He grew up as a Democrat. Greitens graduated from Parkway North High School in 1992.

After high school, Greitens majored in ethics, philosophy, and public policy at Duke University. He graduated in 1996 with an A.B. summa cum laude. Greitens won a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and was selected as a Rhodes scholar, which allowed him to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University. He was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and studied development studies, receiving a M.Phil. in 1998 and a Ph.D., for research on humanitarian organization efforts on behalf of children in war-torn countries, in 2000.

During his 2016 campaign for governor, Greitens said, "I have worked in Cambodia with kids who lost limbs to land mines and are survivors of polio. I've worked in Bolivia with children of the street. I've worked in one of Mother Teresa's homes for the destitute and dying." For six weeks as a college student, Greitens worked at two refugee camps, the Puntizela camp outside Pula, Croatia, and the Gasinci camp outside Osijek, Croatia. Both are described in his book. Refugee camps in Croatia were temporary homes for Bosnians crossing the border. Greitens also traveled to Rwanda and Zaire as a volunteer U.N. photographer.

Navy career

Greitens matriculated at the United States Navy's Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, in January 2001, graduating in May of that year as an ensign in the United States Navy Reserve. He then began Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, California, graduating with Class 237 in February 2002.

Greitens rose to be a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy Reserve. During his active duty career, he was deployed four times, to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. He was the commander of a joint special operations task unit, a Mark V Special Operations Craft detachment, and an al-Qaeda targeting cell.

Subsequent career

Greitens taught public service at the Truman School of Public Affairs and was an adjunct professor of business ethics in the MBA program at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Nonprofit work

Eric Greitens 2011-5
Greitens speaking in 2011

After returning from Iraq, Greitens founded The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization that places veterans with volunteer organizations to encourage public service, build community connections, and improve career skills.

In total, as CEO of The Mission Continues, Greitens received $700,000 in compensation from the nonprofit. He worked without pay in 2007 and 2008; was paid $150,000 from mid-2010 through 2011 after receiving a grant from the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation; and was paid $200,000 in each of the years 2011, 2012, and 2013. He stepped down as CEO in 2014 and left the board of the organization in 2015. Greitens's compensation as head of the nonprofit became an issue in his subsequent political campaigns. Experts on nonprofit compensation said that his salary as head of the nonprofit was higher than similarly situated activities, although not extravagant in light of the organization's mission, as well as Greitens's education and career background.

Eric Greitens 2012
Greitens and a U.S. Marine with The Mission Continues in 2012

The Associated Press reported in March 2018 that Greitens had used the charity's email account to arrange political meetings about his gubernatorial campaign, which is prohibited by federal tax law. He was also accused of using the charity's list of donors to raise money for his campaign, a violation of campaign finance law. On December 28, 2018, The Kansas City Star reported that the Missouri attorney general had dropped the investigation against the nonprofit.

Books

SD meets with Missouri governor 170327-D-GO396-222 (32870938313)
Greitens with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in March 2017

Greitens's military experience formed the basis for his career as a speaker at corporate events and as author of three books:

  • Strength & Compassion: Photographs and Essays (2008).
  • The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).
  • Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015).

Greitens was a popular speaker before his political career. His second and third books displayed the SEALs insignia on their covers, and he charged as much as $75,000 for a speech in Asia. In 2016 an anonymous group charged in a YouTube video that he had exaggerated his record in books and television appears and was unduly benefiting from his time in the SEALs; Greitens responded by releasing his military records and publishing a video he uploaded to his channel with testimonials from SEALs and Marines with whom he had served.

Switch to the Republican Party

Greitens grew up as a Democrat. In 2015, he wrote a Fox News op-ed announcing that he had become a Republican. He said he had been raised in the tradition of Harry Truman and had even been recruited as a Democratic candidate for Congress, but was pushed rightward after seeing the Department of Veterans Affairs fail to help many of his brothers in arms. He recalled being angered at how the Democrats' only solution was to "spend more money" on the VA. "The problem is that most Democrats seem to think more money and bigger government are the solutions to virtually every single problem", he wrote. He said he believed Democrats no longer had the right ideas to stand up for the middle class.

Governor of Missouri

Eric Greitens for Governor
Gubernatorial election campaign logo

On September 26, 2015, Greitens announced his candidacy for governor of Missouri as a Republican. He won the August 2, 2016 Republican primary with 236,250 votes (34.6%) to businessman John Brunner's 169,425 (24.8%), Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder's 141,498 (20.7%), and former Speaker Catherine Hanaway's 136,350 (19.9%). Democrat-turned-Republican Greitens faced Republican-turned-Democrat Chris Koster in the general election on November 8, 2016, and won with 51.3% of the vote to Koster's 45.4%.

GreitensInaug
A B-2 stealth bomber flies over the Inauguration of Governor Eric Greitens on January 9, 2017, in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Greitens took office as governor on January 9, 2017.

During his tenure, Greitens supported public infrastructure investment as a tool for economic development and to reduce unemployment. As governor, he introduced a $25 million "Jobs and Infrastructure Fund" to state-sponsor construction of communications, utilities, transportation and other infrastructure at the request of private companies looking to expand into Missouri. He initially opposed public funding or tax credits for construction of the Centene Stadium in St. Louis on land owned by the Missouri Department of Transportation, but later said he was "willing to work with" investors.

Greitens supported the Missouri Steel Mill Bill, legislation that allowed utility regulators to approve lower electricity rates for industrial companies using large amounts of energy.

In 2018, Greitens proposed a package of $800 million in state tax cuts. He specifically proposed a 10% reduction in the top individual state income tax rate (reducing it from 5.9% to 5.3%) and a reduction in the state corporate income tax rate by almost one-third, from 6.25% to 4.25%, which would give Missouri the nation's second-lowest corporate rate. Greitens also proposed the creation of a non-refundable state tax credit for low-income workers, and applying the Missouri sales tax to online purchases for the first time.

Healthcare

Greitens staunchly opposed proposals to accept the Medicaid expansion in Missouri under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposals would have expanded health insurance coverage eligibility to about 300,000 Missourians. Greitens also called for the ACA to be repealed and replaced.

Other aspects

Greitens's first two executive orders banned employees in the executive branch from accepting gifts from lobbyists and froze all new regulations through February 2017. In November 2018, a statewide referendum put heavy restrictions on lobbyist gifts, virtually banning them.

In June 2017, Greitens signed Missouri's first Foster Care Bill of Rights, which outlined specific measures designed to improve the safety and quality of life of children in Missouri's foster care system. As first lady, Sheena Greitens focused on efforts to improve the lives of foster children and foster parents. The Greitens administration waived the $15 fee for foster children to obtain copies of their birth certificates; made appointments to child protection boards, many of which had previously been able to function due to lack of a quorum; and joined the National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise, an interstate compact to facilitate adoption and fostering across state lines.

2022 U.S. Senate campaign

In 2022, Greitens ran for the U.S. Senate; he lost the Republican primary to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who won the general election.

Personal life

Sheena Greitens
Sheena Greitens in 2017
Inauguration of Eric Greitens 12
Eric and Sheena Greitens dancing at the inaugural ball

Greitens's marriage to his first wife, Rebecca Wright, ended in divorce in 2003.

Greitens was married to Sheena Elise Chestnut from 2011 to 2020. They have two sons.

In 2013, Greitens made a cameo appearance, along with other post–9/11 military veterans, in the science fiction film Star Trek Into Darkness. He is featured in Joe Klein's book Charlie Mike: A True Story of Heroes Who Brought Their Mission Home.

Missouri's first Jewish governor, Greitens attends the Reform B'nai El synagogue.

As a candidate and as governor, Greitens often publicly touted his fitness and publicized physical feats. He was a boxer in college with a black belt in taekwondo.

Honors and awards

In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Greitens the President's Volunteer Service Award for his work at The Mission Continues.

Greitens was also named the 2010 Reader of the Year by Outside magazine.

In 2012, Greitens was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) from Tufts University. That same year he received the Bronfman Prize.

Time named Greitens to its 2013 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2014 Fortune featured him as one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders.

See also

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