Energy Executive Jim Lamon’s candidacy marks the first Republican to jump into the race to become Arizona’s next Senator in 2022. He is gearing up to restore the GOP’s Senate majority by defeating incumbent Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Democrat and former NASA astronaut.
Lamon jumps into the race with a background as the founder and CEO of Scottsdale-based firm, DEPCOM Power. Launched in 2013, the company is responsible for the engineering, construction and operation of one gigawatt (GW) of utility solar plants for companies stretching from Oregon to Mississippi to North Carolina. DEPCOM Power was situated at number five on the 2018 Inc. 5,000 list of fastest-growing private companies and in December 2018, made the Top 20 Best Places to work in Phoenix list.
Lamon was raised on a family farm in Alabama where he eventually went on to play college football at the University of Alabama under Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, formally ranked by ESPN as America’s greatest college football coach. Following Lamon’s time in Alabama, he served as an engineer airborne officer for the U.S. Army, which included a deployment in pre-unification Germany.
“Serving in Germany during the Cold War showed me that American freedom is so powerful, people would risk their lives to escape communism,” he shares in a campaign announcement video depicting scenes of the historic fall of the Berlin wall, a barrier between the communist East and free West.
Lamon has touched on familiar Republican themes as he has publicly criticized the “political and media elites” who he expressed have “the power to divide us and distract us, to amplify the angry, the lies, and suppress the reasonable.” His official campaign website states, “It’s time to end ‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’ in Washington,” with Lamon using his considerable experience in the power industry to drive home a “power to the people” message in his campaign announcement video. Lamon’s campaign will be centered around putting America First, securing the Border, and streamlining the Federal Government.
