Richard Riordan

Richard Riordan (1993)

Richard J. Riordan (born May 1, 1930 in New York City ) is an American politician ( Republican Party ) from California , who was California's education minister from 2003 to 2005 and mayor of Los Angeles from 1993 to 2001 . In 2002 Riordan ran for the governor of California, but was unsuccessful. He is Catholic, married to Nancy Daly Riordan and has three daughters from his first marriage.

Before his political career

Riordan, an Irish-American, was born in Flushing , a borough of New York, and studied at Princeton University , where he received a degree in philosophy. Riordan served as a soldier in the Korean War and then earned his doctorate in law from the University of Michigan in 1956 . A short time later he acquired an inheritance from his father, which he invested in four companies: Control Data Corporation, Litton Industries, Haloid (predecessor of Xerox) and Syntex. Within a few years, he turned the $ 80,000 into a fortune of nearly $ 500,000.

He moved to Los Angeles to work at the O'Melveney & Myers law firm, but spent the next several years moving from company to company, honing his skills as a venture capitalist . One of his successes was the first company that could produce video cassettes cheaply.

He founded a venture capital company called Riordan, Lewis & Haden, along with the mid-1980s J. Christopher Lewis , a former professional tennis player and the former quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams , Pat Haden . In addition, Riordan was involved in various other companies; The toy manufacturer Mattel is one of the best known .

The Riordan Foundation

Richard Riordan created the Riordan Foundation in 1981 with the aim of enabling people to thrive in society. The foundation works on projects that aim to teach children to read and young adults to learn leadership skills. The foundation now has over 2,300 successful graduates. It has also provided over 23,400 computers in over 2,110 schools in 40 states and over 145,000 primary school books.

mayor

When Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley announced his retirement, Riordan expressed an interest in the 1993 mayoral election. This was a key election for a number of reasons. Bradley had five terms in office, so the winner would become the first new mayor in two decades. The city had changed a lot during Bradley's tenure. Los Angeles had become a cosmopolitan city, but at the same time there had been a sharp rise in crime , especially among street gangs. In addition, traffic in the city had become a massive problem. The boom of the past three decades was over. In the LAPD under Chief of Police Daryl Gates racist tendencies arose. Gates came under massive criticism for his strategy. The 1992 riots came after four LAPD police officers attacked an African American.

Together with Mike Woo , Richard Riordan was the top candidate in the election campaign. Riordan won the election with 54% of the vote and became the first Republican mayor in over 30 years. Many of his decisions, however, were blocked by the democratically led city council or turned out to be simply unrealizable. Nevertheless, he was re-elected in 1997. His rival candidate was Senator Tom Hayden .

During his second term, a new subway line, the Red Line, was built, a project that was very close to his heart. In 2001, Riordan was replaced by James Hahn, as he was not allowed to run again after two terms.

In 2002, Riordan decided to run for governor of California . However, he lost the Republican Primary to the more conservative Bill Simon . After his defeat, he was appointed Minister of Education by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003, a position he held until June 30, 2005.

Later participation in politics

Richard Riordan worked closely with the later longtime mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa .

Web links

Richard Riordan in nndb (English)

personal data
SURNAME	Riordan, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Riordan, Richard J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American politician
DATE OF BIRTH	May 1, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City