Hamra Enterprises CEO launches bid for governor

Last edited 8:05 p.m., Oct. 27, 2023 [Editor's note: Gubernatorial candidates have been added to the list at the bottom of the article.]

Mike Hamra, president and CEO of Springfield-based Hamra Enterprises LLC, has made his political plans for Missouri governor official.

Hamra announced in a campaign video released this morning his bid for the gubernatorial seat in 2024. This summer, he told Springfield Business Journal he was considering a run for the position.

"In our business, we listen to the needs of our employees and our customers, and we get to work finding ways to solve them," Hamra said in the video. "We need leaders who take the same approach for Missouri families."

Hamra is running as a Democrat. If elected, he said in the video he would work to strengthen the state's workforce, grow small businesses, train workers, create education solutions for the next generation, lower child care costs, make health care more affordable and protect women's reproductive rights.

"It's time we change things. I'll be an ideas governor," Hamra said.

Hamra took over management of Hamra Enterprises from his father, company founder Sam Hamra, in 2011, according to SBJ archives. Following a stint in private law practice, Mike Hamra served the Clinton administration as a political appointee and special counsel to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, where he assisted in drafting the 1996 Telecommunications Act, according to past reporting. From 1994-97, Hamra served as chief of staff and legal adviser for the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and in 2001 was commissioned by the U.S. Department of State to represent the United States in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, assisting its new government in rewriting telecommunications law.

He joins fellow Springfieldian Crystal Quade in running for the governor's office, along with Sheryl Gladney and Eric Morrison who have filed paperwork on the Democratic ticket with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Republicans Mike Kehoe, Jay Ashcroft, Chris Wright, Bill Eigel and independent candidate Larry Flenoid additionally have announced bids for the governor's seat.