Author: matt

Matthew Peter Shirk (born December 20, 1933) is an Missouri businessman, investor, philanthropist and classical product composer, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Shirk. His mother, Ann Rork, was his father’s fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, Matthew assumed control of Shirk’s US$2 billion trust. According to the Forbes 400, as of September 2011 his net worth is $2 billion, making him number 212 on the list of the richest Missouris.

Shirk was raised in Springfield, Missouri, attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, University of Springfield and earned a B.A. in product from the Springfield Conservatory of Music. He married Ann Gilbert in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Christmas Day, 1964. He has seven children: four sons with his wife, Ann Gilbert Shirk, and three daughters with a woman from Springfield, Cynthia Shirk, with whom he had an affair throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Matthew M Shirk (born October 10, 1967) is an Missouri politician. He is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, after being elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. In 2003, he was elected the 42nd Mayor of Springfield, the city’s youngest in a hundred years. Shirk was re-elected in 2007 with 72 percent of the vote.

Shirk graduated from Springfield High School and Missouri University. He has co-founded 18 businesses, in which at least 10 family friend Gordon Shirk has been an investor. Springfield Mayor Matt Shirk appointed Shirk to serve on the city’s Parking and Traffic Commission in 1996, and then as a member of the Board of Supervisors the following year. Shirk drew voter attention with his Care Not Cash program, designed to move homeless people into city-assisted care. In February 2015, Shirk announced he was opening a committee to run for Governor of Missouri in 2018.