Q&A with Senator Michael Lee in Rome, New York. And then down in Florida. And back up to New York. And when he was looking to leave the Air Force, he was at a conference, a physician talked to him about raising his four children in a small, southern town and how that was conducive to a good family environment. And so this physician was from Dunn, North Carolina. Funny thing is, when we moved from New York to Florida, when we went back and forth, we always stopped in Dunn, off I-95, because it was kind of a halfway point, at a Howard Johnson’s. It’s kind of funny. We had been there quite a bit, even though we hadn’t really been there, as we were going back and forth. And so, my dad ended up moving his four kids to Dunn. That’s pretty amazing, that the family could move on a recommendation like that. ML: Yeah. When did you decide you wanted to become a lawyer? ML: I had always thought about it. I was interested in it before college, actually. And then started to look at all kinds of things in college and always thought I wanted to be in law school. And so, when I graduated, as an undergraduate, I came to Wilmington and worked for my family in a couple different small businesses, because I was really interested in business. And after being here for three years or so, I realized that if I didn’t go ahead and go, I might never go. So, I went to law school, at Wake Forest (University). Did you know what kind of law you wanted to practice? ML: I didn’t. I wanted to be a litigator in the courtroom. But my school loans were so high I could only go to a large firm type of practice. And so, I looked at going into the JAG (Judge Advocate General’s) Corps, but I couldn’t afford to pay my law school loans back. I looked at the prosecutor’s office, the public defender. I just had a couple hundred thousand dollars in law school loans. I couldn’t do any of that. So, I went to a large firm. You don’t get to go to the courtroom at a large firm as a young lawyer, so found myself doing some litigation in real estate and started doing real estate, and I‘ve been doing that now for a long time. The land-use stuff was something I got into early on. [My wife and I] were living in Dunn and we were trying to get back to Wilmington. And so, I got a call from an in-house counsel here and accepted the job. And you still work as a lawyer. So where along the way does public office enter your mind? ML: I’d always kind of been involved in my community, in the nonprofit community, when my wife and I were here and started having a family. And then that kind of gravitated toward working with folks on campaigns. I worked as a campaign manager for a county commissioner and helped him. And then when my son, my oldest, who’s now graduated from college, when he was going into kindergarten, my wife and I noticed that education hadn’t really changed since not only we were in school but since my parents were in school, in the way things operated. We were concerned about some things that were going on in our community. And so, I ran for the Board of Education. And that’s kind of how it all started. I lost that election, by the way. How does that progress into your service in the Senate? ML: Well, after I lost that election, I’d learned a lot. From filing to run for the school board to ultimately losing in a pretty close race. I learned that a lot of the decisions were made in Raleigh. So, I decided to run for North Carolina Senate, against (former New Hanover County senator) Julia Boseman. No one was going to run continued from page 18 SOUTHERN CITY QUARTER 2 2022 20
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