Stay home. Bring your friends here.

It may sound like an unusual message for the man in charge of Missouri tourism, but it’s the one Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell frequently preaches. “Rediscover Your Missouri” is more than a campaign slogan: “I chose this office on purpose. I get to market Missouri, and I love the state and all it offers,” he explains. Tourism is a huge revenue producer for Missouri, employing 200,000 people and generating nearly $13 billion in annual consumer revenue.

“What people don’t realize,” he points out, “is that we tend to view tourism as spending money, not getting money. Every dollar the tourism commission spends, it returns over $50.” He is convinced that if people would stay home and enjoy Missouri’s wonders rather than taking that money out of the state, the current budget shortfall could be eliminated.

Maxwell has been lieutenant governor since November 2000 when he was appointed. He plans to run again, believing that he is already making a difference in the key areas of his office: tourism, safeguarding and enhancing the lives of the elderly, and early childhood education. He notes that Missouri is the fifth-oldest state based on per capita age, and that it ranks first in the country on the number of individuals who leave the state and return as seniors. These facts, coupled with Missouri’s comparatively low taxes, can strain the state’s budget even in good times, much less this year when there has been a 30-percent cut in the tourism budget, he asserts.

Maxwell is a true Missouri boy, by birth and by love. Hailing from Mexico, Mo. both his bachelor’s degree in secondary education and his law degree are from MU in Columbia. He serves on 10 different boards and still lives in Mexico with his wife and two daughters. “I’ve been blessed for the choices I’ve made,” he says.

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