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Patterson, now set to ascend to the lower chamber’s top position in 2025, emerged as the next speaker after a closed-door vote by House Republicans.

Patterson, 43, is trained as a general surgeon and will become the first person of color elevated to House speaker in Missouri, assuming Republicans, as expected, win control of the Missouri House again in 2024.

“I want to thank my fellow caucus members for their support and for placing their trust and faith in me as we move Missouri forward,� Patterson said in a news release.

He pledged to “work with all members of the House to find common ground, pass commonsense legislation, and protect the rights, freedoms, and values Missourians hold dear.

In an interview Tuesday, Patterson said his priorities would include continuing to invest in infrastructure, ensuring schools produce students that can compete globally, and public safety.

Patterson said he is “very much in agreement� with current House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, who is term-limited in 2024, on policies that benefit Missouri.

Patterson will rise to the top of the House having been among a small number of GOP lawmakers to vote against restrictions on transgender medical care for minors this year, viewed as a top Republican priority.

Patterson said he believed there ought to be rare instances where transgender medical care is allowed after a thorough vetting.

Even with his opposition, Patterson, who controls legislative traffic as majority leader, allowed debate and a vote on the restrictions, which have been in effect since August as they are being challenged in state court.

Patterson said that his parents adopted him from an orphanage in South Korea and that he arrived in Kansas City in 1986 at 6 years old.

He said that growing up, his dad worked at Kansas City-based Hallmark while his mother was a stay-at-home mom.

“I’m the luckiest person you’ve ever met, I really am — to be given a family, to be made in America,� Patterson said Tuesday.

On the historic nature of his promotion, Patterson said, “There are people that came way before and did not have the opportunities that I have had because of their race. I’ve never been hindered by it, and it’s because of those people.�

Patterson graduated from Blue Springs High School in 1998 and earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia, according to his House biography.

The biography said Patterson worked at Truman Medical Center in downtown Kansas City to complete his medical residency and worked as a general surgeon in Jackson County between 2011 and 2022. He also has embarked on surgical mission trips abroad, to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Jordan.

He currently lives in Lee’s Summit with his wife and two children.

As a lawmaker representing a suburban district in the Kansas City area, Patterson doesn’t have a history of sponsoring some of the GOP’s most controversial proposals on topics such as firearms, COVID-19 and abortion.

In the most recent legislative session, Patterson was one of many lawmakers to file a relatively uncontroversial extension of Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days to a year after childbirth.

Republicans won 111 seats in the last election. Democrats gained three seats to control 52 districts after the latest round of redistricting. It takes 82 seats to form a majority in the House.

All 163 House districts will be up for grabs in the November 2024 general election.

Editor’s note: a previous version of this article misstated the type of one of Patterson’s degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia.