Claude R. Kirk

Claude Roy Kirk Jr. (January 7, 1926 – September 28, 2011) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 36th governor of Florida from 1967 to 1971. A Republican for most his career, he was the first Republican governor of Florida since Reconstruction. Early life Kirk was born in San Bernardino, California. Claude R. Kirk Jr.'s father, Claude Kirk Sr. was a businessperson and later a governmental official in Alabama and Florida. He lived in Chicago, Illinois, and Montgomery, Alabama, where he attended Sidney Lanier High School. After graduating at age seventeen, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps reserve and rose to the rank of second lieutenant, having served stateside during World War II. He briefly attended Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, before he transferred to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Kirk was accepted at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa and graduated in 1949. He was recalled to the Marines for the Korean War and was initially assigned to the 1st Marine Division. He later served aboard the battleship USS New Jersey and was discharged as a first lieutenant in 1952. Business Kirk worked as an insurance salesman and sold building supplies before partnering with W. Ashley Verlander in 1956 to start the American Heritage Life Insurance Company in Jacksonville, Florida. He had very little money of his own, so he recruited investors and his brother-in-law to bankroll the venture. The firm catered to the wealthy and quickly became one of the most successful in the industry, earning Kirk a fortune. Six years later, he left American Heritage Life and purchased a partnership in the New York securities firm, Hayden Stone, selling investments to Floridians. Early political career