Early Life, Education and Career
McHenry was born in Gastonia, North Carolina. He grew up in suburban Gastonia, North Carolina, the son of the owner of the Dixie Lawn Care Company, and attended Ashbrook High School. A Roman Catholic, McHenry was the youngest of five children. His parents are now deceased.
Halfway through North Carolina State University, McHenry transferred to Belmont Abbey College. At Belmont, McHenry founded the school's College Republican chapter, then became chair of the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans and served as treasurer for the College Republican National Committee.
His first run for public office was for the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1998, while still a junior in college; he won the primary but lost in the general election. The Democratic winner was the father of a high school classmate.
After earning a B.A. in history in 1999, McHenry worked for the media consulting firm DCI/New Media, in Washington, D.C. He was involved in Rick Lazio's campaign against Hillary Clinton during the November 2000 United States Senate election in New York; his main project was running a Web site, NotHillary.com.
Read more about this topic: Patrick McHenry
Famous quotes containing the words early, education and/or career:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“Until we devise means of discovering workers who are temperamentally irked by monotony it will be well to take for granted that the majority of human beings cannot safely be regimented at work without relief in the form of education and recreation and pleasant surroundings.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)