Governor Charlie Crist is a strong, independent leader who works toward practical solutions for less taxes and spending and increased personal freedom. On November 7, 2006, Governor Charlie Crist was elected to serve as Florida’s 44th Governor. Since his inauguration, Charlie Crist has worked to lower the cost of doing business and living in Florida, increase transparency in government, strengthen Florida’s economy and ensure the safety and world-class education of Florida’s children.

Some of Governor Crist’s most acclaimed accomplishments include: the largest tax cut in Florida history, the unanimously passed Cover Florida Health Care plan that provides access to affordable health care for thousands of uninsured Floridians, the Anti-Murder Act that has placed 96 probation violators behind bars, Operation Orange Tree which captured over 75 child predators, the state’s record 10,000 foster children adopted into loving permanent families, and the daily effort to maintain a level of fiscal responsibility in state spending that honors Florida’s hard-working taxpayers.

Governor Crist’s long career of public service began in Florida’s criminal justice system while interning in the State Attorney’s Office before accepting a position as general counsel for the minor league division of the Baseball Commissioner’s Office. Governor Crist then worked as state director for former U.S. Senator Connie Mack before later returning to the private practice of law with the Tampa firm of Wood and Crist.

In 1992, Governor Crist won a seat in the Florida Senate. For six years in the Senate, Governor Crist served as Chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee and as Chairman of the Appropriations Criminal Justice Subcommittee. A strong voice for public safety, he sponsored, among other legislation, the Stop Turning Out Prisoners (STOP) bill requiring prisoners to serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentences. This earned him numerous honors, including appointment as an Honorary Sheriff by the Florida Sheriffs Association—only the third person to receive the honor in the organization’s long history.

After Governor Crist completed his Senate service, Governor Jeb Bush appointed him as Deputy Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. In 2000, Governor Crist won a special election and became Florida’s last elected Commissioner of Education. Governor Crist’s path of public service next led him to seek election as Attorney General in 2002. He carried the general election by more than one-third of a million votes to become Florida’s first elected Republican Attorney General.

Governor Crist was born in 1956 in Altoona, Pennsylvania but spent his childhood in St. Petersburg, where he was class president at St. Petersburg High School and, later, student body vice president at Florida State University. In high school Governor Crist was the starting quarterback for his football team. He later played football at Wake Forest University before transferring and receiving his undergraduate degree from Florida State in 1978. Governor Crist then earned his law degree from the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama.

Governor Crist and his wife Carole have been married since December 12, 2008. They were married in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.