MEET SPENCER

 Spencer Roach represents District 79 in the Florida House of Representatives, which covers the unincorporated areas of north and east Lee County, Florida. Spencer retired as a Judge Advocate from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2016 after 20 years of active-duty military service as both an enlisted member and commissioned officer. His last assignment with the Coast Guard was as a staff attorney in the Office of Member Advocacy in Washington, DC, where he was responsible for providing legal counsel to members with service-related disabilities. He spent his first 10 years in service serving as a search and rescue coxswain and counter-narcotics officer before earning an officer’s commission. 

Spencer attended both Edison Community College and Florida Gulf Coast University while serving on active duty. He earned degree in Political Science and graduating summa cum laude from FGCU. 

During his two decades of service, Spencer’s assignments included tours of duty in Alaska, a six-month combat deployment to the Middle East enforcing UN sanctions against Iraq, and service in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. 

Spencer was later selected for the prestigious Judge Advocate General Program (JAG) and attended the University of Miami School of Law on a military scholarship. He is also licensed to practice law in both Florida and Texas. His most recent assignment as a JAG was representing returning soldiers and sailors injured in the line of duty. 

Spencer retired from the Coast Guard in 2016 and returned to Lee County, where he has been a resident since his assignment to Coast Guard Station Ft Myers Beach in 2000. 

Spencer grew up in a proud blue-collar household, working with his father and uncles in a 4th-generation family-owned plumbing company. From an early age, he gained an appreciation for the trades and an unwavering belief that a superior personal work ethic is the great equalizer in pursuit of upward mobility. 

Spencer was inducted into the FGCU Soaring Eagles Distinguished Alumni Association. He was also profiled in National Jurist magazine in 2009. He has been twice presented with Legislative Tributes from the Florida House of Representatives; once in 2004 for his volunteer efforts with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of SW Florida, and again in 2016 to commemorate his retirement from the Coast Guard. 

Spencer is a certified ESL teacher and has been active in a variety of volunteer work for well over a decade. While in law school, Spencer managed a program that provided Financial Literacy classes to children aging out of foster care. He currently he serves as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem in the 20th Judicial Circuit and recently became a licensed foster parent. He is also an avid scuba diver, having traveled all over the world, with a focus on Central and South America.