David Lenoir: Concerning education, ‘is our money where our mouth is’
Education is the “game-changer” for David Lenoir, an entrepreneur, accountant and candidate for the Republican nomination in the Shelby County mayor’s race.
Without education, people struggle to find jobs with decent pay, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and cultivating a “long-term hopelessness” that helps foster crime and blight, said Lenoir, who is nearing the end of his second and final term as county trustee. In turn, crime and blight depress property values and stopper economic growth.
“We can say education is important,” he said. “But is our money where our mouth is?”
If elected mayor, Lenoir, 49, who lives on a farm north of Collierville, said one of the ways he’ll invest in education is by hiring an education liaison to coordinate with Shelby County Schools and community stakeholders on education initiatives.
He faces County Commissioner Terry Roland and Juvenile Court Clerk Joy Touliatos in the May 1 primary for the Republican nomination. On the Democratic side, Sen. Lee Harris faces former commissioner Sidney Chism. Early voting begins Wednesday.
Lenoir, a self-described “problem solver”, is used to reconciling budgets. But by addressing education, the county can reconcile people’s human dignity with their circumstances, helping them address their “lack of hope,” he said. That’s why he started a financial literacy program through the trustee’s office, he said.
But reconciliation isn’t “just some political soundbite,” Lenoir said.
In 2005, he remarried his highschool sweetheart Shannon, who accused him in 1999 of being serially unfaithful and having a gambling problem, among other issues, according to court records from their divorce.
In the years that followed the divorce, Lenoir said he came to realize “there is a God who loves me and a God who forgives,” and began working with his wife and church to gradually reforge their relationship.
Now, he said, he and his wife look at their relationship as a ministry to others and have counseled with other couples and shared their story at their church, Grace Evangelical.
“Grace is what love looks like when faced with imperfections,” he said.
In 1990, during college, Lenoir also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Lenoir, who was a defensive end for University of Alabama’s football team, said he didn’t participate when a fight broke out on Beale Street, but he was rounded up anyway because he was close by and stood out from the crowd.
Lenoir graduated with an accounting degree from the University of Alabama in 1990 after his graduation from Evangelical Christian School in 1986.
After college, Lenoir put his financial chops to work, following in the footsteps of his parents and starting a business, Trust Investment Services, which found its niche helping clients across the South design their employee benefits packages. In the early 90s, he sold the business to First Mercantile, the business his parents started in 1973.
After a four-year stint at financial services firm Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, he launched Centurion Investment Advisory Partners, a Christian-based “socially responsible mutual fund,” in 2006.
When the recession hit in 2008, he closed shop and went to work for another investment firm, Sector Capital Management.
In 2010, after growing frustrated with government debts and bailouts and with the lack of financial literacy in the county, Lenoir “pulled the trigger” and ran for trustee. He won, then was reelected in 2014.
During his tenure, he reduced the number of positions in the trustee’s office — including unfilled seats used to “pad the budget” — by 25 percent.
The county needs a mayor with the “right mix of experience,” Lenoir said, emphasizing that he wants to rely on his 20 years of private-sector experience and eight years of experience as “the county’s banker” to streamline the rest of county government.
Last year, he criticized the County Commission for only cutting the property rate by 2 cents, arguing that many people would end up paying more in taxes due to a reappraisal.
“I think it’s a little offensive to ask for a property tax increase when government isn’t right-sized,” he said.
Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @ryanpoe.