Mark Abraham

Mark Thorpe Abraham (born November 13, 1953)^[1][2] is a businessman from Lake Charles, who is a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 36 in Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana. On January 11, 2016, he succeeded the term-limited Republican Representative Chuck Kleckley, also the former Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

In the October 24, 2015 primary election, Abraham, with 5,607 votes (54.6 percent), defeated another Republican candidate, Keith DeSonier, who polled 4,654 votes (45.4 percent).^[3]

Abraham holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he played football for the LSU Tigers. He is a former member of the Lake Charles City Council, the Port Authority, and the Louisiana International Trade Commission. He is a member at-large of the Louisiana Board of Regents. A real estate broker, he is also the co-owner of several other businesses, including a Cajun food company, a storage firm, a furniture and appliance rental company, and a shrimp and seafood processing plant. He is a member of the board of the Guatemalan orphanage Casa Aleluya and the Council for a Better Louisiana. He and his wife, Gina, have three children.^[4]

In August 2017, Abraham and his family were staying at a hotel located two blocks from the scene of the 2017 terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain. The Abrahams were not at the site of the attack when the ISIS terrorists struck but were placed under a one-day lockdown at the hotel. Abraham described his experience as "surreal to be at the location of a terrorist attack and not watch it on TV. I can't really completely explain the feeling. We're sick about the loss of life and the injured."^[5]

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