About Richard Moore

State Treasurer Richard H. Moore, 47, is a native of Granville County, North Carolina.
Moore began his public career in 1989, as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Among his successful prosecutions as a U.S. Attorney were several complex financial conspiracies including one of the largest check kiting schemes in U.S. history.

Moore was elected to the N. C. House of Representatives in 1992 where he sponsored bills to reform government, expand child care tax credits, help small businesses provide health care coverage, and increase unemployment benefits.

Governor Jim Hunt appointed Moore as Secretary of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety in 1995, where he led the state’s emergency response to Hurricanes Fran and Floyd. As the state’s chief law enforcement official, Moore oversaw the state Highway Patrol and National Guard.

Now in his second term as state treasurer, Moore is responsible for nearly $80 billion in public money and oversees the pension funds for more than 750,000 public workers. By modernizing the state’s investment strategies, Moore has generated more than $4 billion in additional investment returns for retirees. Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s recently named North Carolina as having the second-best funded state pension system in the United States for the second year in a row. In 2004, Moore was honored as a Top Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine for his national leadership on corporate accountability and guidance of the state’s pension fund.

In 2006, Richard Moore became the first statewide elected official to call for an increase in the minimum wage, forming the One Dollar More Coalition. He publicly challenged members of the state Chamber of Commerce and Bankers Association to support the increase, saying “raising the minimum wage is a pro-business and pro-family measure that will greatly benefit all of us." Later that year, the General Assembly agreed to increase the minimum wage to $6.15, giving tens of thousands of working families a much needed raise.

Moore has championed a national movement to protect shareholder rights against Wall Street corporate abuses. In the wake of recent Wall Street scandals, Moore authored investment and mutual fund protection principles that have been adopted by pension fund managers across the country to clean up business practices. As a result of his efforts to promote corporate responsibility, Moore served two terms as the only elected official on the executive board of the New York Stock Exchange and now serves on the NYSE Regulation board. He has also made North Carolina a leader in the national movement to ensure that companies adopt policies to address environmental issues, especially global climate change.

Moore is committed to increasing financial literacy and helping North Carolinians make smart financial decisions for themselves and their families. Through partnerships with groups such as AARP, 4-H clubs, the North Carolina Council on Economic Education and the N.C. Jumpstart Coalition, Treasurer Moore and his staff have helped thousands of citizens understand the basics of their personal finances and how to build financial security.

In 2006, Moore received an Eisenhower Fellowship to study business and financial systems in China and India. The experience taught him how North Carolina can better compete in the global economy.

Moore is an honors graduate of Wake Forest University and the School of Law with a graduate degree in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics. He and his wife Noel and their three children have a home in Raleigh and a farm near Kittrell, North Carolina. Moore is a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Oxford, where he teaches Sunday school.