Bill Graham

Biography

Bill Graham is a conservatie activist and a former candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2008.

Early Life and Education

William Marc Graham was born in Dunn on Nov. 25, 1960, to John and Rebecca Graham. His father was a chemist in a local textile mill and his mother was a nurse.

He says his interest in politics was sparked in junior high while watching U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin on television during the Watergate scandal.

Active in the Boy Scouts, he attained the rank of Eagle Scout. 

He graduated from from Dunn High Schoo in 1979. He spent his senior year in high school in Ireland after his father was transferred there for work.

As a child, he was known as Marc, but he changed his name to William in college.  

He earned a bachelor of arts from Catawba College in 1983. While in college, he worked shfits at Cannon Mills in Kannapolis. He served in the N.C. Student Legislature and interned for U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms for several weeks in Washington, D.C.

He earned a law degree at Antioch University in 1986, completing his last year at Wake Forest University.

Family

He lives in a 12,045-square-foot home in Salisbury with his wife, Shari, and their two children. His wife bought two dresses formerly owned by Princess Diana.

Professional Career 

After law school, he worked as a prosecutor in Rowan and Cabarrus counties.

He later joined a law firm in Salisbury, handling cases involving asbestos, a fire retardant used in construction that has been shown to cause lung problems. 

He said he primarily handles cancer cases and workers comp claims in which state government sets his fee at 25 percent.

He is currently a partner in Wallace & Graham. He would not discuss his finances, but his income taxes in 2002 were more than $1 million. 

In 2002, he filed a lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer over the use of mercury. 

He recently sold a bullet manufacturing firm.

He is a founding member of the board of Community Bank of Rowan.

He currently serves on the board of trustees of Catawba College. On that board, he approved several tuition increases at the private college.

He taught business management, business law and business math at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in the mid 1990s.

Political Advocacy 

Over the years, Graham has been a big political donor, contributing at least $176,000 to mainly Republican candidates and causes during the past decade, according to campaign finance reports.

He currently serves as secretary of the board of directors of the Jesse Helms Center, a nonprofit organization named for the former U.S. senator.

In 2006, he started N.C. Conservatives United, spending $2.2 million of his own money for a TV ad campaign against a gas tax increase. The tax was eventually capped at 29.9 cents per gallon.

The group later ran ads against illegal immigration.

Gubernatorial Campaign '08

On May 17, 2007, he kicked off his campaign for governor at a rally in Dunn. Voter discontent with taxes, illegal immigration and Democratic corruption are among his campaign themes. 

He also called for a peer review system to reduce the number of lawsuits against doctors, and said the state shouldn't tax overtime. He called for suspending the state gas tax during the summer to help combat higher oil prices, creating a line-item veto for the governor, giving local sheriffs immigration authority and changing the lottery formula.

He proposed creating an exchange for private groups to buy and sell insurance in North Carolina and broadcasting the legislature on the Internet.

He invested at least $1.2 million of his own money in the campaign, hiring nearly 60 college students to go door-to-door on his behalf.

He faced former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, state Sen. Fred Smith and pecan farmer Elbie Powers in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

He came in third, with 9.3 percent of the vote. 

Research and reporting by Rob Christensen and Ryan Teague Beckwith.

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